Podbit · Jon Mallia Podcast
St John's Co-Cathedral was designed by Gerolamo Cassar, a Maltese architect who studied in Rome and brought the knowledge back to Malta. His work defined the military-baroque style of Valletta. The Knights used Maltese talent, even if Maltese people had no political power.
Where this was said
At 35:39 · chapter starts 35:18
The conversation turns to the Maltese contribution to the Cathedral's creation. The architect who designed St John's was Gerolamo Cassar — a Maltese man, not a European import. Cassar had studied in Rome and returned to Malta with the architectural knowledge to create an entire capital city. [1] — Tonio Mallia "St John's Co-Cathedral was designed by Gerolamo Cassar, a Maltese architect who studied in Rome and brought the knowledge back to Malta. Hi…" 35:39 Yet the Maltese people he came from had virtually no political standing under the Knights: they were permitted to live in their own lands and practise their trades, but power rested entirely with the European noble Order. Tonio and Jon discuss this paradox — that the Cathedral's very stones were shaped by Maltese hands, yet the institution it represented was entirely foreign. The marble floor of the Cathedral itself becomes a metaphor: every slab is a grave, a Knight buried beneath the feet of visitors. Under Merchant Street, Tonio reveals, the ground was once open water — a moat that was filled in, and bones disinterred from an earlier cemetery.
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