Xlejli Tower, Bettina Palace

The Xlejli Tower stands in the gardens of the Bettina Palace, or Dorrel Palace as it is also known at Gudja in the south of Malta. The garden is one of the largest on the island and contains a variety of unusual follies including several antiquities. Dominating the garden and the surrounding country is the tall, round tower.

The earliest reference to the Xlejli Tower is in a book printed in 1570 where it is described as a lookout tower dating from the 12th or 13th centuries. However Louis de Boisgelin, historian of the Order of St John writing in 1804 conjectures that it could date from Roman times. He says that 'an urn of baked earth (terracotta) filled with Roman copper medals was found in this place; but as there was no local inscription, it gave no insight into the history of the tower'. Modern archaeologists in Malta have identified the remains of several other round towers that could well date from the Roman era.

Whatever its age, it seems certain that the Xlejli Tower was built as a lookout and not for defensive purposes. From the top it commands an unbroken view of the island's southern coastline for 180 degrees, from Benghisa Point to the Grand Harbour.

The palazzo itself, one of the loveliest houses in Malta, was built in 1670, and the tower was probably enclosed within the high garden wall at that time. In 1760 the palazzo was bought by Pietro Paolo Dorell Falzon, as a dowry for his daughter Bettina, on the occasion of her marriage. Since then the palazzo has belonged to the Trapani Galea Feriol family. The family title, Barons of San Marciano, was the creation of Grand Master of the Order of St John, Manoel de Vilhena, in 1726. Gino, the present Baron is the tenth since the creation and his eldest son Michael enjoys the courtesy title, Baroncino di San Marciano.

Bettina Dorell had been a lady-in -waiting to the Queen of Naples and was therefore a woman of considerable social consequence on the island. She was much given to entertaining which meant lunch followed by tea, owing to the long distance traveled by horse and carriage from Valletta. After luncheon there was that awkward social gap that had to be filled before tea, and so the hostess endevoured to provide visits to conceits, follies, fancies and other beguilement for the entertainment of her guests. Coffee was served in a hexagonal kiosk that was sadly destroyed by a  bomb that took a direct hit during the Second World War.

Bettina's most ambitious project was to restore and decorate the tower as we see it today: three rooms, one on top of the other, with access by an external spiral staircase. The lowest room , on the first floor, is decorated in the neo-classical taste: the walls are hung with chintz which is probably contemporary with Bettina's refurbishment, two plaster figures of Sappho and Vesta face each other across the room, while in the centre of the painted floor is an empty plinth upon which once stood a third statue- that was shattered by a bomb blast during the War, perhaps by the same bomb that destroyed the kiosk.

 The beams and the interstices of all the ceilings in the tower are beautifully and delicately painted with bands and garlands.

The room on the middle floor is is filled by a large circular table with a chintz cloth over it and small benches set against the painted walls.

 The table is set with dishes of food for a typical Maltese meal: joints of meat and game, fresh fruit and bread - but in fact it is all carved from soft limestone and painted with trompe-l'oeil effect. The Maltese limestone is very soft and workable when quarried, but hardens off after about eighteen months exposure to the air.

The stairs get even more vertiginous as one ascends to and finally reaches the top room which is empty except for an elderly telescope on a stand. The walls, painted in oil on plaster ground, are home to an imaginary landscape filled with strange buildings, cities and villages, and although not alien to the Maltese landscape it bears no direct topographical relationship to the surrounding countryside. It is peopled with an assortment of very strange and enigmatic groups. The name of the painter is unknown, but in the 18th century Malta had a good many itinerant artists who would knock on the doors of large houses offering to paint friezes, stencil and marble; and also execute portraits of the household.

The beautiful palazzo with its gorgeous tower with its interiors decorated in deliciously light airy colours is a brilliant reminder of the sophistication and exquisite cosmopolitan taste of the Maltese aristocracy that flourished under the rule of the Order of St John in the 18th century.

San Anton Palace Gardens

Malta, the land of honey is famous for its roses and for its beautiful gardens. Most of them are hidden away behind high stone walls. But the loveliest gardens of them all, are surely those at San Anton Palace, Fra. Antoine de Paule's country villa, four miles from Valletta. There are the famous orange groves, magnificent specimen trees, fragrant roses and honeysuckle and vibrant beds of colour provided by massed plantings of pelagoniums and rampant climbers plumbago and bougainvillea.

While still the Prior of Saint-Gilles, Fra. Antoine de Paule had built himself a country villa at Attard. On assuming the magistry in 1623 he set about enlarging his house into a palace for entertaining his friends and guests. He bought more land and set about planting groves of orange, lemon and other fruit trees which he imported from France, Sicily, Spain and Italy.

He built fountains and pools stocked with fish from Sicily and laid out his lovely gardens, a plan of which, it is said, was sent by the Bailiff de Vendome to Louis XIV of France to serve as a model for the gardens at Versailles.

By 1625 most of the improvements at San Anton were completed, giving the palace the appearance it has today, although there were additional alterations and embellishments which have continued down to the present day. The palace has roughly the shape of a cross, with the four arms approximating to the four points of the compass. On the south east is the large courtyard that leads to the palace entrance. The spaces between the arms of the cross on the North east and North West and South West are the three private gardens.

The garden most often used for entertaining is the South West Garden divided into lower and upper sections by a stone colonnade. Here well watered lawns, a rarity in scorching Malta are shaded by magnificent tree specimens, some of which are hundreds of years old. A number of these trees have been planted by distinguished visitors over the years and are still flourishing. These include a Sapindus Indica planted by King Edward VII in !903. Araucarias were planted by Queen Alexandra in 1907, by the Duke of Coburg and Gotha in 1910 and by the Duchess of Cornwall and York in 1901. A Quericus Robur was planted by the Dowager Empress Marie of Russia during her stay at San Anton breaking her voyage into exile in 1919.An Accacia Farnesiana was planted by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh to the commemorate the birth of their daughter, Princess Victoria Melita "which occurred in the Palace Antonio on 25th November 1876" has long since died, but the marble plaque remains to record the event.

The private garden to the North West is another lovely garden with flowers, fish ponds and majestic trees. Here there is a tree that was planted by the German Emperor Wilhelm II in 1904. Taking a walk through the gardens on Saturday 26th April 1919 the Empress Marie of Russia caught sight of the tree and jabbed at it with her parasol saying, "Why do you keep a tree planted by the Kaiser - horrid man - why don't you pull it up?" With the reply that it wasn't the tree's fault, H.I.M. just laughed and turned away.A high wall separates this garden from the orange and lemon groves beyond. Two oaks close to the tennis court were planted by Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1954.  The tennis court was installed during the time of Governor Bonham-Carter (1936-40)

A small door in the boundary wall, locked since time immemorial is reputed to have been used by Flamina Valenti, mistress of Fra. Antoine de Paule. The lady had been installed in a lovely old house in St. Anthony Street, that had a common garden wall with San Anton. Her assignations in the lovely gardens with the grand master drew the mounting disapproval of the Inquisitor Fabio Chigi (later Pope Alexander VII). Their none too discreet affair was reported to the Vatican on several occasions, she was described in one letter to Cardinal Barbineri as the 'Grand Master's prostitute.' On more than four occasions renowned beauty Miss Valenti entered the Convent of the Repented in Valletta, but only after Fra. Antoine died in 1636 did she become a nun.

The oranges grown at San Anton have long had the reputation as the finest fruit grown on the island. Whenever the grand master wished to pay a complement to a friendly power he usually sent a gift of San Anton oranges. The tradition continued during the British era when the governor usually sent a couple of crates of the fruit to reach London for Christmas. Grand Master de Rohan bought more adjoining land to increase the size of the orange groves.

It was in 1882 that an earlier governor Sir Arthur Bortor gave over the larger part of the gardens for the recreation of the public, including the menagerie and the aviaries that housed among other birds gorgeous Golden  Pheasants

 The kitchen gardens are aid out on the far side of St. Anthony Street at the western extremity of the gardens.The reservoir constructed in 1766, was later used a swimming pool, until 1970.