Castellania (Valletta)

Background and institution

The Magna Curia Castellaniæ, also known as the Gran Corte della Castellania (English: High Court of the Castellania), was a tribunal in Malta during the rule of the Order of St. John. The courts followed the Sicilian legal system, and the tribunal was headed by a Castellan or Preside, who was a knight of the Order. It included two judges, one for civil and one for criminal cases. There was also a Cancelliere, who was responsible for receiving and preserving judicial acts, registering the sentences meted out by the judges and supervising the other workers in the courts. There was a Gran Visconte, and Capitani di notte who implemented the sentences. Other workers included an official who saw that prisoners were treated fairly, those who were responsible for the archives and advocates for legal aid.

The Castellania was the supreme court of justice of the islands, hence called Gran Corte or the variants in legal documents. The Grand Master had the absolute power to preside over the institution, however the Pope had a superior decision such as when there was conflict with the court of the Bishop. The judges of the Castellania were native Maltese and dealt with cases that took place in Valletta, Floriana and the Three Cities. The tribunal was established by Grand Master Juan de Homedes y Coscon in 1543 (a system formerly used in Rhodes, known as Pragmaticæ Rhodiæ, that was first introduced in Malta in 1533) and it was initially housed in a building in Birgu. After the Order moved their headquarters to Valletta, a new Castellania was built in the new capital in 1572, during the magistracy of Grand Master Jean de la Cassière. Meanwhile, the original Castellania in Birgu was converted into the Inquisitor's Palace in 1574. Apart from a courthouse, the Castellania also served as a prison where suspects and convicts were imprisoned.

Construction and use as a courthouse

The building of a Castellania was made in the original plans of Valletta. Part of the plans was also to fall within the reserved area of the auberges of the knights, known as the Collacchio, but limiting access to a vast area in Valletta was unpractical and the initiative was abandoned. The first Castellania was likely designed by Girolamo Cassar, similar to other Valletta buildings of the late 16th century.

The original Castellania of Valletta was demolished in the mid-18th century on orders of Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca. A new Baroque building was constructed on its site by the same Grand Master, creating significant employment as Pinto had hoped for, with works commencing in 1757. Throughout the course of construction, prisoners were held in a torre near Valletta's Porta Reale, probably the tower of Saint James Cavalier. The new Castellania was built to a design by the architect Francesco Zerafa, but he died before its completion, so he was substituted by the architect Giuseppe Bonici. The edifice was completed in 1760, with its chapel being consecrated on 15 November of that year. The prisoners were transferred to the new prison three days later, on 18 November 1760. During the 18th century, the building was also called the Palazzo del Tribunale.

Local hard limestone was used for construction, however the main portico was decorated with Carrara marble. Some of the marble used was cannibalized from the ruins of the Temple of Proserpina, an ancient Roman temple in Mtarfa which had been discovered in 1613. A craftsman who worked on the decorative sculpture of the Castellania's chapel was Maestro Giovanni Puglisi, a Neapolitan buonavoglia (a voluntary rower on the galleys, not slave). He would become the first man to be convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging in the new Castellania on 15 December 1760. With the remodelling of the edifice, Pinto has ubiquitous besprinkle his heraldic symbolic couchant crescents, in the interior and exterior of the architecture of the building, to convey a message of his absolutism and opulence. The Castellania made use of bells to attract people and inform about an event, such as a guilty verdict.

In an uncommon case, heard at the Castellania in 1774, was when an intersex person, 17-year-old Rosa Mifsud from Luqa, petitioned for a sex change by wearing as a man, instead of the female clothing worn ever since born. Two medical experts were appointed by the court to perform an examination. This case gives detail of the use of experts in the field, similar to the late modern period. The examiners were the Physician-in-Chief (during the British period was replaced by the Chief Government Medical Officer) and a senior surgeon, both working at the Sacra Infermeria. The Grandmaster took the decision for Mifsud to wear only men clothes from then on. The decision was taken to the court of appeals, which appointed other seven medical experts that agreed with the observations of the previous two experts.

Following the Rising of the Priests in 1775, three of the rebellion's leaders were executed without receiving fair trial. The death penalty was signed by the Castellano under the orders of Grand Master Francisco Ximenes de Texada. Prior to judgement, some of the priests and clerics were locked up in the secretive prisons near the courtroom of the Castallania, some at the Castellania dungeons, and in other Valletta buildings. All those arrested were recorded on the Libro del Carcerati Della Magna Curia Castellania. Among them was Gaetano Mannarino, the leader of the rebellion. Some of them were condemned to death by strangulation in the dungeons of the Castellania. The whole process went against the conformity of the courts in Malta as the priests were not to be subjected to the Castellania but to the court of the Bishop or the Pope.

Malta was invaded by the French First Republic in June 1798, and the Order was expelled from the island, resulting in the French occupation of Malta. The French reformed the legal system, with the Magna Curia Castellaniæ being replaced by the Tribunale Provisorio and the Tribunale Civile di Prim'Instanza. The post of Castellano was abolished, and judges were nominated by the Commission de Gouvernement. During the years of French occupation, the building was known as the Palais de Justice. Not less than three full cases of silver, belonging to the Monte di Pietà but secured at the Castellania, were taken by the French on November 8, 1798, and were melted to creat coins to remunerate the Jacobins. It was one of a series of similar reasons that consequently triggered a Maltese revolt. The French law system did not last enough to influence the Maltese courts at the time.

After a successful Maltese uprising against French rule, in 1800 Malta became a British protectorate, and the law was once again reformed, with the Castellania becoming known as the Gran Corte della Valletta. Mikiel Anton Vassalli was imprisoned at the Castellania from 16 September 1800 until he was exiled on 15 January 1801. Like other public buildings, the Castellania was closed down during the plague outbreak of 1813–14, and it was only used for emergency cases relating to the plague itself. When the plague ended, the Castellania was once again used as a courthouse and gaol for accused who were still awaiting trial.

While the Castellania was in use as a courthouse and prison, parts of the building were also used for a number of other purposes. For example, it housed the Monte di Pietà until 1773, and the office of the Deputy Inspector General of Executive Police in the early 19th century. As published on the Malta Government Gazette, on 21 October 1829, Malta saw the introduction of a jury system in cases related to murder.

Italian was used as the main functioning language of the courts throughout the periods of the knights, French occupation, British protectorate, until at least 1879 when the courts had already moved out of the building. The French language was established as the sole official language, however an exception was given to the courts as Italian prevailed for legal jargon. Efforts by the British to use English during the protectorate and the early colonisation of Malta failed, mostly due to the resistance by the noble class. The supreme court proceeding were suggested to take place with the use of English, to encourage the study and use of English by judges and lawyers, but the efforts were futile. Both during the French occupation and English period, the supreme court decisions were published in Italian and the other preferred language of the government; French during the French period and English during the British periods. The Maltese language was never discussed to be used at the courts when housed in the Castellania.

The building was no longer regarded as being adequate to function as a courthouse by 1840, and that year the Civil Courts were moved to Auberge d'Auvergne. The courts of criminal jurisdiction and the office of the police were also moved to the auberge in 1853, and by a Governor Ordinance No. 11 of 5 May 1852 the Castellania had to be converted into a military mess for the Maltese Militia Force. It is known to have been occupied by the military stationed in Valletta and Floriana by at least 1854. The building later housed an exhibition centre, a tenant house and a Government High School for Girls. It has also served as headquarters of the St. John Ambulance Association.

Department and Ministry for Health

The building became the seat of the Chief Government Medical Officer in 1885. On 10 April 1895 Gerald Strickland transferred into the building the head office of the Public Health Department, which in 1937 combined them as the Medical and Health Department. Between 1904 and 1906, the Malta Fever Commission (MFC) worked in the Castallania, and on 14 June 1905 the physician Sir Themistocles Zammit discovered the cause behind the Mediterranean fever (known also by various names) while working there.

In June 1904, during the experiments, Zammit learned that a Maltese family of five members became simultaneously ill after consuming fresh unpasteurized milk from goats. Zammit decided to purchase healthy goats and tested them, and kept them on the first floor of the Castellania (then known as the public health building or the variants). He voluntarily infected them, after which he bought kids (young goats) to suck milk from the infected goats. The goats were later taken to a purposely built laboratory on Manoel Island when the kids became infected, hence the experiment proved connection to the fever with unpasteurized milk. David Bruce, who led the MFC, discouraged the experiments when proposed by Zammit. However, when the experiment concluded in the discovery, Bruce tried his best to discredit Zammit and took the merit to himself. Information about the role of Zammit was kept low profile or ignored. The fever was renamed after Bruce, as brucellosis.

The laboratory on the Castellania's second floor which was used by the Malta Fever Commission was restored and converted into The Brucellosis Museum in 1980, and it is now open to the public by appointment. Since the British period some of the prison cells were modified and converted into government offices and at present still serve this purpose. Other parts of the Castellania's interior, including the chapel and one of the prison cells, were restored in the 1990s. The restored cell appears on the front cover of the book Kissing the Gallows: A Cultural History of Crime, Torture and Punishment in Malta, 1600–1798, authored by William Zammit. There were further plans to restore the façade in the late 1990s, but nothing materialized. The façade is again on plan to be restored as part of a number of projects of the Valletta 2018 - European Capital of Culture. The building appears in a late 19th century photo, when the part on St. John Street was used to house the gas office, and the shops of the time in Merchant's Street.

Since 1921, the building has housed Malta's health ministry, which has been known by a number of names throughout the years (currently Ministry for Health, the Elderly and Community Care). The ground floor hosts a number of shops which were intended in the original design to generate employment. The rest of the building is not normally open to the public, except for some special occasions such as the Notte Bianca. In 2007, Minister Austin Gatt has suggested to host in the building a museum of Maltese legal and political history, however, with no success.

The building was included on the Antiquities List of 1925, as La Castellania. It is now a Grade 1 national monument, and it is also listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. The court documents, of the Magna Curia Castellania (MCC), are now stored and conserved at the Banca Giuratale in Mdina. The documents form part of the National Archives of Malta and are used by historians as primary sources to research about Malta during the knights of St. John.

Exterior

The Castellania is considered as the masterpiece of architecture projected by Grand Master Pinto, being the most original intact of secular High Baroque architecture and a relic of the early modern period, under the rule of the Order of St. John. It has an elaborate façade designed to be imposing, of similar proportions to an auberge, and it is a prominent building in the area. It is two stories high, being built on three sides of a small courtyard at the rear. Although the building has an asymmetrical plan, the main façade in Merchants street is symmetrical. The design prominently includes sumptuous edges, spread over the exterior.

The main façade features a centrepiece includes an arched main doorway, a jotting out symmetric triple concave with clustered pilasters, above which is a cornice and an iron-railed balcony which opens into the former criminal hall. Heraldic crescents from Pinto's coat of arms decorate the main portal, and a commemorative plaque with the following inscription is found beneath the balcony. It reads:

The balcony is topped by allegorical figures of Justice and Truth, as well as sculptures of a winged female figure and a putto. The empty spaces between these figures probably contained Pinto's bust and coat of arms, but they were removed during the French occupation of Malta or in the early 19th century. Some parts of the sculptures, such as the scales held by Lady Justice, are now missing.

The ground floor in Merchants Street was designed so as to house eight shops, four on each side of the main doorway. Each shop has another room above, reached by an individual spiral staircase, which space was intended as a home for the owners. These rooms above the shops have a window each, forming eight square windows on the façade, one above each shop. The windows are decorated with the symbolic crescents of Pinto. The side façade along St. John's Street is not as ornate as the main façade, and it contains a set of wooden and open balconies. The entrance to the Castellania's prison cells is located in the side façade.

The building's corner between Merchants and St. John's streets contains a cylindrical pedestal which is about 3 m (9.8 ft) high. This originally served as a pillory, where prisoners would be publicly humiliated. More serious offenders were whipped or tortured using the corda at this pillory. Louis de Boisgelin, the historian of the Order, says amid the last three days of the Maltese carnival the locals used to recite a Roman tradition at the Castellany by dangling a stone above the pillory (instead of a human) and hit it which symbolised a temporal halt of punishment during those days.

An iron hook is affixed into the wall of the Castellania close to the pillory. According to local legend, the hook might have been used to lift the largest bell of the nearby Saint John's Co-Cathedral, but this is now regarded as unlikely. The hook was most probably used to secure prisoners to the Castellania's pillory. In 1803, Horatio Nelson allegedly passed through the hook in a dare, and the hook became known as Nelson's Hook after the Battle of Trafalgar. It became a tradition for Royal Navy sailors to bet and buy drinks for shipmates who managed to pass through the hook. Junior officers allegedly had a good chance of promotion if they passed through the hook.

Interior

The interior of the Castellania contains offices, court halls, a chapel and prison cells. A large allegorical statue representing Lady Justice or Astraea wearing a blindfold and holding weighing scales stands at the staircase which lead to the former courtrooms. The statue stands on a pedestal, and its sculptor is unknown. The staircase is grandiose on its own. The most decorated room in the building is the Sala Nobile (Noble Hall) on the first floor, which was originally the court hall and which is now used as a meeting room. This room has coats-of-arms of the Castellani depicted on the upper side of the walls. There are 105 coats-of-arms, belonging to the Castellani from 1609 to the last in 1798, after which the position was abolished. An inscription, found on a cartouche, above the main door of the hall reads:

The chapel was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows (also called the Madonna di Pietà or Mater Dolorosa). After being deconsecrated in the late 19th century, the room was used for other purposes, and only the limestone frame, where used to be the titular painting which was retrieved during restoration works in 1991, still remains from the chapel's original interior. An ornate fountain is located at the building's main courtyard, above which is a niche with a statue and above it an elaborate sculpture of the coat-of-arms of Pinto.

A number of prison cells are found in the Castellania. The cells close to the court rooms hosted new cases and also those awaiting execution. Several other cells are located at the rear of the building, and they are surrounded by a courtyard. These cells housed inmates who had to serve a short sentence of less than eight days, usually due to unpaid rent or accumulated debts. Prisoners with longer sentences were usually sent to other prisons, usually the Gran Prigione. The minor inmates at the Castellania were the ones who took care of the general maintenance, cleaning and repair works of the building, while guards were responsible for the allocation of tasks and observing their performance. Some historical graffiti made by prisoners can be found at the courtyard of the prison. At the underground are the dungeons, which are described as an unpleasant place to stay. The building has a direct passage to a WWII air-raid shelter from a small room at the small courtyard, which was escalated in the early 20th century.

Legacy

The building was colloquially referred to in Maltese as il-Kistlanija. It inspired the saying għandu wiċċ l-għatba tal-Kistlanija, which is translated as "he has the face of the Castellania's doorstep". This referred to a shameless person showing few or no expressions. The expression Castellania's doorstep was also used to imply equality in the application of law.

Commemorative coins

La Castellania was depicted on two commemorative coins minted in 2009 by the Central Bank of Malta. The coins show part of the building's façade on the reverse and the coat of arms of Malta on the obverse.