Santa Maria delle Grazie Tower

The Santa Maria delle Grazie Tower , also known as Torre di Santa Maria delle Grazie , was a defense tower near Xgħajra in the south of the island of Malta . It was built in 1620 as the sixth and last of the Wignacourt Towers and is attested to around 1761.

No precise information has been obtained about the shape and appearance of the building. Stephen C. Spiteri concludes from the comparatively low construction costs of 4948 Scudi that this was the smallest of the Wignacourt towers. A plan sketch printed by Spiteri shows that the tower had a square base, had four small bastions at the corners and could be reached by an external staircase separated from the tower. In terms of its basic structure, this followed the other coastal towers built under the rule of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt .

The foundation stone was laid in April 1620, the ceremony was recorded in detail by the notary Salvatore Ciantar in a description. In 1888 at the latest, the last remains of the tower were removed by British troops to clear the field of fire of the Delle Grazie Battery .

literature

• Stephen C. Spiteri : In the Defense of the Coast (I): The Bastioned Towers . In: ARX . International Journal of Military Architecture and Fortification. No. 3 , 2013, p. 58–59 (English, online ( memento of July 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive )).

Coordinates: 35 ° 53 ′ 11.2 "  N , 14 ° 32 ′ 59"  E