Sarria Church, Floriana

The Sarria Church in Floriana, the suburb of Valletta, was designed by  Fra' Mattia Preti and built by Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafa in 1678
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The Sarria Church is said to have been a personal votive offering by Preti to commemorate the island's deliverance from a devastating outbreak of the plague. The church is circular in plan and it displays elements of both the Classical and the Baroque styles that were prevalent in Malta at that time.

Mattia Preti was responsible for all the paintings in the Church.

St Catherine of Italy, Valletta

The little church of St Catherine of Italy, the church of the Langue of Italy is next to the Auberge of Italy and faces Our Lady of Victory in Victory Square, Valletta. The original church was designed by Gerolamo Cassar and dedicated to the patron Saint of Italy, St Catherine of Siena in 1576.

St Catherine of Italy was remodelled in the 1680's when it was given an octagonal floor plan, possibly under the direction of the architect Francois Blondel.  The church was remodeled again in 1713 by Romano Carapecchia who added the porch, now  St Catherine's defining feature.

The altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St Catherine was executed in Naples in 1659 and donated by the artist Mattia Preti to the Italian knights to demonstrate his talent, and as such is one of the first works by the great painter in Malta. 

The Italian knights commissioned Preti to design the painting of the vault of St Catherine's although the work was executed by another artist.

One of the most important dates in the year of the Langue of Italy was the Feast Day of St Catherine, 25th November.On the eve of the feast the Grand Master and the Knights Grand Cross assembled in the church of St Catherine where they assisted at the First Vespers chanted by the Conventual Chaplains of the Langue of Italy.

On the Feast  itself, at 8 in the morning, the Grand Master and the Knights Grand Cross a assembled once more at the Church of St Catherine for a High Mass. At the same time a high Mass  was celebrated in the Chapel of St Catherine in the Conventual church of St John. Then a procession was formed under the direction of the Vice-Prior to carry the Order's most precious relic, the hand of St John the Baptist through the main doors of St John's, down Zachary Street to St Catherine's.

When the relic arrived at St Catherine's the Antiphon of the Benedictus was intoned before the procession then made its way back to St John's, accompanied now by the Grand Master and the Knights Grand Cross holding lighted torches.

St George, Qormi (Citta Pinto)

Qormi was one of the ten original parishes of Malta. The present church dedicated to St George is the thrid building on the site dates from 1585, incorporating the site and stones from the earlier structures. St George was enlarged in 1684 by Lorenzo Gafa with an elegant facade,  a cruciform shape and an imposing dome. The church was dedicated on 6th May 1731.
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The titular painting of St George the Martyr  is the last known work by Mattia Preti.

St Philip, Zebbug (Citta Rohan)

The original parish church of Zebbug dedicated to St Philip of Agira was built in 1380. It was replaced in the late 17th century by the present church designed by Tommaso Dingli. Under the Knights of St John, Zebbug was one of the principal towns on the island and in 1777 was bestowed with the title Citta Rohan, by Grand Master Emmanuel Rohan-Polduc. The magnificence of the church is due in large part to the number of leading corsairs who lived in the parish and endowed St Phillip in gratitude for their good fortune.

The magnificent titular painting is by Luca Garnier. There are also two murals by Fransceco Zahra, an 18th Maltese painter of the school of  Favray and a Guido Reni. During the French Revolutionary regime (1798-1800) the Maltese churches were plundered to finance Napoleon's campaign, however the people of Zabbar when they heard that the French were coming opened the church doors and hid all the church gold and silver. When the French saw that the church doors were open they passed by, leaving St Philip with its treasure intact.

Annunciation of Our Lady, Balzan

The small village of Balzan was elevated to the status of a parish in the 17th century. The village was named  after Maximillian Balzan a Spanish merchant who settled in Malta in 1567. He was granted the land where the village now stands for services to the Order of St John.

The parish church dedicated to the Annunciation of Our Lady dates from the mid 17th century in the form of a Latin cross, with one belfry and an elegant dome. The foundation stone was laid in 1669 and the church was completed in 1693. The facade is rather unusual with elongated pilasters and rich lace-like decoration that give it a Spanish feel.

St Stephen, Anglars

St Stephen at Anglars became the property of the Commandery of Espalion following the church's  donation to the Hospitallers in 1265. In its appearance the building appears something of a hybrid between an chateau and a church. It has a single nave and a rectangular chancel. The upper sections of the church were fortified in 1381 to provide shelter for the local population during the 100 Years War against the English; the walled cemetery protected their livestock. The two upper turrets were built to provide additional security during the Wars of Religion in the 16th century.

Our Lady of Tortosa

Tortosa (modern day Tartus) on the coast of Syria is reputed to be where St Peter the Apostle said his first mass.  As early as the 3rd century, before Christianity was even tolerated, a chapel was built here to consecrate the site. The chapel has the distinction of being the first to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary and was popularly believed to have contained an icon of the Virgin painted by St Luke. This Sanctuary became an important pilgrimage site during the Byzantine Empire.

In 1123 the Crusaders began work on the Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa built to sanctify the site of the chapel dedicated to the Virgin, to provide a focus for visiting pilgrims. This supremely elegant building was erected on the cusp of the transition between the Romanesque and the Gothic. It has, with good reason, been described as the finest surviving example of Crusader ecclesiastical  architecture in the Holy Land. While the facade is severe and almost unembellished; apart from the main door, there are only five, high, Gothic windows. The interior has graceful columns,Gothic arches and soaring vaulted ceilings. The columns in the nave show marked stylistic variations from Romanesque at the east end to early Gothic at the west.

In 1152, Tortosa was captured by the Nur al-Adin whose army burnt and sacked the city, leaving it destroyed and deserted. After it had been retaken by the Crusaders it became apparent that the County of Tripoli lacked the resources to restore the city. So Tortosa was entrusted to the Order of the Temple which embarked on an ambitious  programme of fortification. Unique among the surviving Crusader churches of the Holy Land, the Cathedral of Our Lady is fortified. Defensive tower-like sacristies still stand at the north east and south east corners of the Cathedral. There were once also defensive towers along the western aisle bays, indicating  that the Cathedral was an integral part of the defences of  Tortosa.

Today the (deconsecrated) Cathedral houses the National Museum of Tartus and houses artifacts from all historical epochs found across Syria.

St Andre, Luz-Saint-Sauveur

The late 11th century church of St. Andre in Luz-Saint-Sauveur, at the bottom of a deep gorge in the Pyrenees was  built by the St. Andre family and donated by them to the Order of St.John in the early 14th century.

The Order used the church to provide spiritual and temporal sustenance to villagers, and to pilgrims travelling  the Camino  of St. James to Santiago de Compostella.

At the beginning o the 14th century the Order threw up the fortified walls around the church to provide protection to the villagers and pilgrims from Aragonese bandits who posed a considerable threat at that time.

The church of St. Andre at Luz-Saint-Sauveur remained a property of the Order of St. John until the French revolution in 1798.

St. Mary North Petherton

The minster Church of St. Mary at North Petherton  was already ancient when in 1166 William de Erlegh included it and its five dependencies in his foundation grant to Buckland Priory, a house of Augustinian canons. In 1180 the Augustinians were replaced by Henry II with the Sisters of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem or Knights Hospitaller. For the next 350 years the Hospitallers were the 'patrons' of  North Petherton Church and appointed its vicars.The Order of St. John built the present church in the mid 15th century and the beautiful tower a few years later, at the beginning of the 16th century.

In the late 12th century the vicar received £39 2s a year out of which he owed a pension of £3 8s 3d. to the sisters of Buckland Priory. He did however receive an allowance of hay from the priory. At times the prioresses of Buckland and the vicars of Petherton enjoyed somewhat strained relations. In the 1450's the prioress had to sue the vicar Sir Robert Norys, because he hadn't paid her the stipend due from  parish revenues.

In 1383 an eight year old girl was placed in the priory of Buckland, 'with the connivance of the prioress' to deprive her of an inheritance....in favour of her uncle. Did Geoffrey Chaucer have this prioress in mind when he described the prioress in the Canterbury Tales? She was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the Canterbury Tales. He was warden of Petherton Park (a deer park), from 1390 until his death in 1400. The timber used in the roof of St. Mary's grew in Petherton Park, famous for its oaks. Geoffrey was succeeded as warden by his son Thomas who may well have overseen the delivery of the wood.