Casa Rocca Piccola

The enclosed wooden balconies along this stretch of Republic Street, glazed and cantilevered out on carved stone brackets, are the most Maltese feature of the city, and their origin is uncertain; the likeliest sources are Arab North Africa and southern Spain. They were few in Valletta before the eighteenth century and are now hard to avoid.

Casa Rocca Piccola was built in the 1580s for Don Pietro La Rocca, an Italian knight and admiral of the Order; the name distinguishes it from a larger house he owned nearby. The de Piro family have lived here for over a century, and the present marquis and his family still occupy the upper floors.

Fifty rooms include the family chapel, dining rooms, a library, silver, lace and costume, and eighteenth-century sedan chairs. Unlike most great houses open to the public, this one is used: the furniture is sat on and the photographs are recent.

As the bombing started, a shelter was cut into the rock under the courtyard for the family, among the largest private shelters in Valletta. The rooms and ventilation shafts survive and are part of the visit. It is a corrective to the operations rooms elsewhere on the walk: for most people in the city the war was spent in holes like this.