Auberge de Castille

The Knights of St John were not one nation but European aristocrats — French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, English — who had taken religious vows and joined a military order. To keep them from tearing each other apart, the Order was divided into eight langues, or tongues, grouped by language and region.

Each langue had its own auberge: inn, mess and headquarters in one building. Each also held a particular office of state permanently. The Italian langue always supplied the Admiral of the fleet, the French langue the Hospitaller who ran the hospital, and this one, Castille, León and Portugal, the Chancellor.

Girolamo Cassar's building of the 1570s was plainer and more obviously military. What stands here now is a rebuilding of around 1741, under Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca, a Portuguese knight with a considerable opinion of himself and the taste to carry it off.

The result swells outward in the centre as though the building were breathing in: a great curved pediment over the door, carved trophies of arms, stone garlands, and Pinto's own bust above the entrance. The two flights of steps sweeping up to the door serve no defensive purpose whatsoever.

The low, massive stone bulk opposite is St James Cavalier, a gun platform raised above the walls in the 1560s so artillery could fire over the top of the fortifications. It stood largely empty through the twentieth century.

In 2000 it was hollowed out to become Malta's centre for creativity, with a cinema, theatre and galleries inside the old gun deck. Entry to the building is free, and the spiral ramp inside — built for hauling cannon up to the guns — is worth the detour.