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Jean Parisot de la Valette (1494-1568) is the most respected and known of all Grand Masters of the Order of the Knights of St John in Malta. He is famed for his heroism and military strategy during the Great Siege of the Ottoman Turks in 1565. His determination not to surrender despite the odds, ensured Malta, the Knights and Christendom were never seriously threatened again by the Ottomans. At the time of the siege he was already an old man. |
But he was a remarkable and brave man far earlier in life. A French nobleman from Provence, La Valette joined the Order at the age of 20. In 1541 he was captured and made a galley slave for a year by Barbary Corsairs under the command of Dragut Reis, the same man who was later to besiege Malta.
After the Great Siege, Valette set about the defense of the Islands by realizing his plans for the building of a new city, as both a fortress and a home befitting the Knights, a city which would be a showcase of cultural and artistic expression of the baroque. Valletta became the foremost city of its time. Then an entirely new concept, it was built on a grid system, considered a forerunner of modern city planning.
Valette did not see the completion of his city. He died in 1568 at 73 and was buried in the crypt of the Order's Co-Cathedral of St John the Baptist. His tomb bears the Latin inscription: "Here lies Valette, worthy of eternal honour. He who was the scourge of Africa and Asia, and the shield of Europe, whence he expelled the barbarians by his holy arms, is the first to be buried in this beloved city, whose founder he was".
