Stop 21 of 25
Auberge d’Aragon
The oldest auberge, and the least changed
Free to hear. You have 3 of three free stops left, on any tours.
Guide to Auberge d’Aragon
The first auberge finished in Valletta, in 1571, for the knights of Aragon, Catalonia and Navarre, and the one that has changed least: a single severe storey of rusticated stone by Girolamo Cassar, with a nineteenth-century porch. It was the Maltese prime minister’s office until 1972 and now houses a ministry.
What an auberge was for
Each langue of the Order lived in its auberge as a household, eating together in a hall and sleeping in cells around a courtyard, under the pilier who headed the langue. The Aragonese pilier was the Order’s Drapier, responsible for its stores and clothing, which in practice meant supplying an army.
Cassar built the house accordingly: a barracks with manners. Small windows, a flat roof, rusticated stone and no ornament.
Preserved by poverty
The Auberge de Castille was rebuilt as a baroque palace in the 1740s; Aragon, never as rich or numerous a langue, left its house alone. The porch of columns was added in the nineteenth century; the rest is much as Cassar left it.
Government property
The building served as the office of the prime minister for much of the twentieth century, until the office moved to Castille in 1972, and now houses a ministry; it is not open to visitors. Independence Square in front of it, with the Anglican spire on one side and the Auberge de Bavière, a palace of 1696 that became the house of the Order’s last langue, the Anglo-Bavarian, in 1784, down the street towards the water, is one of the better places in the city to sit.
What to look at
- The rusticated stone of the ground floor, the original 1571 surface
- The nineteenth-century porch, out of scale with the wall it is stuck to
- The Auberge de Bavière at the seaward end of the street
Practical
- Access
- A government building; exterior only.
- Terrain
- The next leg climbs Archbishop Street back to Republic Street; there are steps on the lower section.
Walk to stop 22 · Casa Rocca Piccola
Follow West Street to Archbishop Street and climb it across the ridge to Republic Street, passing the Archbishop's Palace. Turn left along Republic Street. Casa Rocca Piccola is on the left, just before St Dominic Street, among the enclosed balconies.
About 6 min · 387 m
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