St Saviour, Stydd

The Church of St Saviour at Stydd was founded circa 1136, in the reign of king Stephen by the Knights Hospitaller. The Church is  Norman style although the three light east window with its fine tracery is a little later and dates from the 13th century. The north wall retains all its original features having two narrow round- headed labelled windows. Between them  the original doorway is blocked-up and leaning against the wall is the original door.

The font belongs to the first half of the 16th century and was a gift from Sir Thomas Pemberton who was the Commander of Newland, under which the community of Hospitallers at Stydd was a camera. In 1338 the Commander of Newland had to pay £5.6.8 for a yearly pension of the chaplain at Stydd.

On the South wall is the main door, the fine oak nailed-studded door is original.  The straight headed windows of three lights date from the 15th century and came from St Wilfrid's Church in Ribchester and were installed in the 17th century. The oak screen and pulpit are 17th century.

Chibburn Commandery

The small commandery of Chibburn, between the village of Widdrington and Druridge Bay on the Northumberland coast was donated to the Hospitallers in 1313. The site was located on the main route used by pilgrims visiting Holy Island and Lindisfarne. These ruins are the best preserved commandery of the Order of St John in England. The site is enclosed by a wall and was originally surrounded by a moat,  now filed in.

The commandery buildings at Chibburn are arranged around a courtyard and consist of a chapel, hall and living accommodation for the three members of the Order who lived there including the commander.

There was once a tower on the north side of which little remains. On the west side of the courtyard are the remains of the great hall. The fireplaces have massive lintels.

The chapel on the south side of the courtyard is the best preserved part of the commandery.

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540 Chibburn was sold by the Crown in 1553 to Sir John Widdrington.  He used  it as the dower house for Whittington Castle. The site was abandoned after being razed by French troops who raided the Northumberland Coast in 1693.

St Paul's Gate, Rhodes

St Paul's Gate was built by the Knights of St John in the second half of the 15th century to control movement between the two harbours of Rhodes, the Mandraki and the Commercial Harbour and the Mole of St Nicholas. A polygonal bulwark surrounds the tall central tower.

The coats-of-arms of Pope Sixtus IV and Grand Master d'Aubusson incorporated above it  and below the marble plaque with its relief of St Paul indicate that the tower could be dated to 1476-84. However the arrangement of the fortification  would seem to date it from an earlier period, perhaps from the rule of Grand Master Zacosta (1461-67). Pierre d'Aubusson may well have repaired the gate c.1477, when he reinforced the north wall of the city.

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.

Verdala Palace

Grand Commander Fra' Hughes de Loubenx-Verdalle, a French Knight who belonged to the Langue of Provence was elected Grand Master of the Order of St. John in 1581. Only fifty-one, he was young for a grand master. Five years after his election he was called to Rome where he was made a Cardinal and Prince of the Church. Verdalle did his best to live up to his enhanced status; amongst other things he introduced to Malta the elegant fashion for  music to be played at dinner, "a foretaste of the sweet strains of Paradise".

Verdalle is best remembered in Malta for the castle-like palace he built in the countryside near Mdina. He chose one of the most  prominent positions in the island; a great outcrop overlooking the Boschetto (little wood) or Buskett, the only woodland on the island. The Boschetto is a naturally green valley in an otherwise arid island, where Jerusalem pines flourish and there are some of the finest orange groves, watered by, rare, Maltese springs. The valley had long been a favourite place for the Maltese to escape the summer heat and was a favourite resort to enjoy picnics in the shade among the trees, until Verdalle appropriated the Boschetto for his own personal pleasure, and that of the other Grand-Crosses and his distinguished guests.

Where the great hero of 1565 Valette had declined elevation to become a cardinal and had been content with a modest hunting box to when he came to the Boschetto, the Cardinal Grand Master Verdalle wanted a palace, and he engaged the Maltese architect Gerolamo Cassar to build it. Work began in 1586.

What Cassar designed was a palace with all the outward appearance of a fort. Almost square in plan, Verdala Palace is three stories high and has four pentagonal or bastion shaped corner towers, rising to a forth storey. The lower storey is cut from the living rock and is surrounded by a dry moat. But the Palace was not built to withstand a siege, or even a determined assault, notwithstanding the four pieces of artillery placed on the flat roof. The towers were merely symbolic, emblematic of the proud military heritage of a grand master of the Knights of St.John. The balustrade parapet was added later; during the reign of Grand Master de Vilhena as were his coat-of-arms carved in stone attached to the balustrade on the courtyard and south west fronts. On all four sides of the castle are the smaller coat of arms of the builder Cardinal Grand Master Verdalle.

On the south-west front is a balcony from which a second stone staircase descends to a terrace built by Grand Master Lascaris. Beneath is the terraced garden constructed by walled parterres, filled with shiploads of topsoil; imported from Sicily.

Above the main entrance on the courtyard front , beneath Verdalle's arms  is the inscription "Monte Verdala, Ros et Pluvius" "May dew and rain fall on Monte Verdala".

In the entrance hall is a monumental bust of Verdalle wearing the cardinal's beretta.

On the left side of the entrance hall  were the Grand Master's private apartments. These are the four rooms opening from the great hall on the piano nobile or first floor. In the palace there are three halls and twelve smaller rooms. This is a palace built for pleasure and retreat from the cares of state, not a fortress to repel attackers. However within the walls are secret staircases and oubliettes, some of them with holes carved in the walls for fastening manacles attached to unfortunate captives, imprisoned here for who knows what ends?

The salon has a marble floor and a high ribbed vault ceiling. At either end of the room are lunettes  painted by Filippo Paldini that depict the triumphal rise and rise of Fra' Hughes from cradle to the magistry of the Order of St. John and to his further elevation as a Cardinal. He is depicted at the age of sixteen presenting his proofs of nobility to Grand Master de Homedes for admission into the Order, as Governor of the Artillery, as Grand Prior of Toulouse, as Ambassador of the Hospitallers to Pope Gregory XIII and as Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

The wide spiral staircase winds up through the palace from the basement to the flat roof. The steps shallow enough to permit easy  passage by elderly knights wearing  armour.

Above the entrance to the great hall, is inscribed the motto, Cedant Curae Loco; "All cares surrenders in this place." A fitting motto for a place of retreat from the cares of state..

The bedrooms and private apartments have beautiful wooden ceilings painted during the magistry of  Fra' Manoel de Vilhena and  bearing the Portuguese Grand Master's emblems. In spite of these lovely embellishments, in all other respects the palace retains the austere identity bequeathed by its builder.

These wonderful airy rooms with high ceilings and shuttered windows open on to stone balconys that catch the breeze, and have  marvelous views of the island in all directions. The Palace has been a favourite retreat for the islands' rulers ever since Verdalle bequeathed his palace to the Order. In the Colonial era Verdala was used by the British Governor Generals for weekend houseparties. Verdala Castle remains an official residence of the President of the Republic of Malta.

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.

Holy Infirmary, Valleta

In 1571 the Knights of St John transferred their Convent (headquarters and seat of government) from Birgu (Vittoriosa) across the Grand Harbour, to the new city of Valletta. At the General Chapter of the Order held on 7th November 1574, during the magistry of Fra' Jean de la Cassiere (1572-82), the decision was taken to build a new conventual hospital, 'in order to provide a house or the needs of the sick who up to the present have been uncomfortably cared for at the infirmary at Birgu.'  The site chosen for the new hospital was a prominent position at the south-eastern side of Valletta, above the St Lazurus Curtain, near the entrance to the Grand Harbour.

The new hospital, which would be known as the Sacra Infermeria (Holy Infirmary), was built around a courtyard,  like the Order's great hospital at Rhodes. This building was later referred to as the Lower Courtyard or Cortile di basso. The two main wards were built at right angles, the one fronting St Lazarus Curtain was in later years known as the Old Ward or Sala vecchia, the other retained the name of Small Ward or Saletta throughout the existence of the hospital. On the other two sides of the quadrangle were a series of small rooms on two floors. The main entrance was on the North Street facade of the Old Ward, facing the esplanade of Fort St Elmo. The scale and ambition of the new hospital, and the prominence of its position  near the entrance of the Grand Harbour reflected the scared duty of caring for the sick that was at the heart of the Order of St John's identity, the duty that gave the Order its original name and which remained fundamental to the Order's  vocation.

The work and direction of the Holy Infirmary expanded greatly during the rule of Grand Master Fra' Hughes de Loubenx Verdale (1582-95). From this time on the hospital also oversaw the charitable activities of the Order; the house of unwanted infants, the hospital for women, and the refuge for prostitutes, as well as treatment outside the hospital for less serious diseases, and for poor law relief for the Maltese and the Rhodians who had followed the Knights. The hospital at Birgu (Vittoriosa) had not catered to pilgrims, few of whom passed through Malta, or or the Maltese population who had their own  hospital at Rabat. So the work of the conventual hospital at Valletta was a significant departure from the hospital at Rhodes, which had not served the Greek population.

On 4th February 1660 a decision was taken by the Order of St John to enlarge the hospital, the first stone being laid by Grand Master Fra' Raphael Cotoner (1660-63). The expansion was completed by 1666, under the rule of his brother Fra' Nicholas Cotoner (1663-1680). The Old Ward was extended in the direction of Old Hospital Street, the new extension being known as the Great Ward or Sala Grande. The join between the old and the new wards was marked by two altars placed back to back in the area where the Saletta joined the two wards at right angles. The Old Ward and the Great Ward from then on formed one continuous hall, later referred to as the Long Ward.

 At 155 metres in length, 10.5 metres in width and over 11 metres in height the Long Ward was at that time one of the largest and most impressive interiors in all of Europe. This magnificent room has a wooden coffered ceiling and its floor was paved with stone slabs. Along the walls are niches which served as latrines for the patients. Those in the Old Ward have rectangular recesses in the sides which seem seem to have been used as cupboards. The windows along the top of the wall adjoining St Lazarus Curtain provided light and air. At the far end of the hall, immediately below the ceiling are the coats-of -arms of the Order of St John and of Grand Master Fra' Gregorio Caraffa (1680-90).

In winter, the walls of the Long Ward were hung with tapestries and the beds were draped with curtains. In summer the curtains were replaced by mosquito nets and the tapestries were replaced by a series of paintings by Mattia Preti (1613-99), depicting scenes in the history of the Order of St John.( By 1881 only one of these painting had survived, illustrating Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson in the act of venerating the Relic of the right hand of St John the Baptist. This canvas hung at the back of the hall).

It is recorded that there were 85 paintings hanging in the Holy Infirmary, including the altarpieces of the various wards.All of the larger wards were provided with an altar for the spiritual comfort patients. The altar in the Great Ward was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, that of the New Ward to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and of the Ward for the Wounded to Saints Cosmas and Damian. Other wards had altars dedicated to St. Joseph, the Finding of the Cross and St. John the Baptist.

 The number of beds in the hospital varied over the years. In 1787 its complement of beds was 563, which could be increased to 914 in an emergency, by placing 351 extra beds in the corsie or free middle space along the length of the six largest wards.  These beds were for single occupancy, in an era when many hospitals imposed a regime of bed-sharing. The Great Ward had 64 beds for the use of  patients with a fever, the acute cases being ranged on one side and the chronic cases on the other. The Old Ward had 22 beds for the treatment of civilians, members of religious communities and pilgrims with medical illnesses. The Saletta or Small Ward had 20 beds for the terminally ill. No women were allowed to enter this ward, not even close relatives of the patients.

Under the length of the Long Ward, beneath ground level runs the Sala Magazzeno Grande or Great Magazine Ward. This ward has an exquisite cross vaulted ceiling and heraldic bosses at the centre points where the groin meets the top.These bosses show in relief the Lion Rampant of Grand Master Fra' Jean de la Cassiere and the Cotton Plant of the Grand Masters Raphael and Nicolas Cotoner alternating with bosses of the Cross of the Order. The Great Magazine Ward is reached by the gradual slope of a grand balustrated staircase that descends in two flights from near the northern end of the Long Ward. The Great Magazine Ward had 109 beds for the use of sick galley slaves, for invalid sailors and soldiers from the Order's land and sea forces,and also for a few disabled men "who deserved well of the Order" and a small number of shipyard workers.

At the back of the Great Ward but not communicating with it was a block known as the Falanga which was built c1596 and enlarged in 1636 that had 120 beds. This ward was meant for the reception of patients with contagious and venereal diseases. The section reserved for the treatment of syphilis was made up of two sections, the Stufa (stove) and Falanga proper. The Stufa was a basement room containing the stove that heated the rooms above.Three rooms on ground level were where patients received hot water baths and on the first floor where the patients were taken to rest after the hot air treatment. The Falanga proper had five rooms for patients receiving mercury treatment for the same disease.

The Sacra Infermeria had other specialized wards, in advance of the normal practice at the time. The Sala per i Feriti or Ward for the Wounded  had beds for 29 civilian surgical cases. The Sala Nuova or New Ward had 21 beds for patients suffering from dysentery. The Sala di San Giuseppe or St Joseph's Ward had 20 beds for sick convicts.There were two Lithonomy Wards for patients operated on for the removal of bladder stones. The Sal dei Cavalieri of Knights' Ward had 19 beds for members of the Order of St John suffering with medical ailments. The Palombara (Dovecot) consisted of a number of small rooms wit 29 beds for contagious diseases like tuberculosis and ringworm. Two wards with 19 beds for members of the Order with surgical complaints and two rooms with 10 beds for civilian surgical cases.

One room with 18 beds was reserved for the mentally sick. In 1779 it was recommended that they be transferred to a magazine that had up to then been used for the storage of wood, as these individuals were a source of disturbance to other patients. The basement magazine had windows that opened onto Wells Street at the back of the Infirmary. Passers by used to stop and taunt the inmates and goad them into reaction. This part of Wells Street became known as the "Street of Lunatics."

In May 1679 a further room was added for the reception of patients suffering from contagious diseases and in 1687 a hall was built to house the hospital library. At the rear of the hospital close to the Falanga block was the Routa (wheel). This was a room containing a cot revolving on a vertical axis. The room communicated with the street outside by means of an aperture in the wall.Through this opening babies born out of wedlock or unwanted infants, referred to as eposti and bastardi were deposited to be take care of the the Infirmary staff. The whole apparatus was contrived to protect the identity of the person depositing the  unwanted infant.

Further enlargement of the Holy Infirmary was carried out in 1712, during the rule of Grand Master Fra' Ramon Perellos y Roccafull. These additions comprised the Upper Quadrangle bounded by Hospital, North and Merchants Streets with the main entrance or Porta principale opening onto Merchants Street. The courtyard was surrounded by the pharmacy, its laboratory and residential quarters for the medical staff and lay administrative officials. This became known as the New Hospital or Infermeria Nuova. In the centre of the Upper Quadrangle was a stone fountain decorated with the escutcheon of Perrelos y Roccafull that supplied water to the kitchen, pharmacy and the laboratory.

The supreme head of the Infirmary was the Grand Master. He visited the hospital every Friday "in procession", where on arrival he donned an apron to serve the sick and distribute food and medicines to the poor gathered in the courtyard. Ceremonial visits of the whole Convent in procession took place on Feast Days and on Maunday Thursday and on the Sundays between Easter and Ascension, when the Grand Master and other high dignitaries of the order laid aside their symbols of rank as they entered the Infirmary to attend Mass in the Great Ward. Every evening after Vespers, the priest and the clerici also came in procession to the "palace of the sick" to recite the ancient prayer which dated back to at least the time when the Order was at Acre:

       Seigneurs Malades, pries pour pais que Dieu la mande de ceil 
           en terre.
       Seigneurs Malades, pries pour le fruit de la terre que Dieu le multiplie en
          telle maniere que saincte eglise en soit servie et le peuple soustenu.
       Seigneurs Malades, pries pour l'apostell de Rome et pour les
          cardennaus et pour les patriaches et pour les arcevesques et
          pour les evesques et les prelats,-

and for the king of France, and of Germany, and of England and the King of Cyprus and of Jerusalem - that "God may give them peace and the will to conquer the Holy Land." The 'Lords the Sick' were also asked to pray for all pilgrims and for all Christians travelling by sea, that God would conduct them all in safety; and for all Christians who had fallen into the hands of the Saracens, and for all those who had given alms to the Hospital; and for the souls of their own  mothers and fathers, and for their benefactors; and finally, begging that the good God would give them peace, the petition closing with the Pater Noster.

The Great Ward of the Hospital

From the 1584 Edition of the Statutes

The official head of the Infirmary was the Grand Hospitaller, Pilier of the Langue of France. This position was one of the highest dignities in the Order of St John. The French knights were so jealous of this privilege that they "acknowledged no superior authority but that of the Grand Hospitaller", who alone was permitted to enter the infirmary without leaving at the door the insignia of his office, a requirement to which all others, of no matter what rank were required to submit. Not even the Inquisitor was permitted to set foot within the Infirmary without prior permission.

Fra' Joseph de Limerie Des Choisy

Grand Hospitaller 1729

(St Johns Church, Clerkenwell)

It was the prerogative of the Grand Hospitaller to appoint the Infirmirian who was the senior knight responsible for the day to day administration of the hospital. The Infirmirian had an apartment on the upper floor of the Infiremeria Nuova emblazoned with the coats of arms of eighteen Infirmerians who had governed the hospital from 1681-1765. These armorial bearings ran in a frieze beneath the ceiling around the wall of the apartment. The Infirmerian was a professed knight who like the Grand Hospitaller belonged to the French Langue. He had the dinner and supper bells rung to summon all the officials who ensured that the food was properly served to the patients and that the beds were clean and comfortable.

The Holy Infirmary was professionally staffed by well qualified and experienced medical and surgically trained staff, who had often studied abroad in Italy, and in France. Regulations drawn up in the 17th century stipulated that three doctors and one surgeon must sleep in the Hospital every night. By 1725 the  professional staff consisted of three resident senior physicians, three resident junior physicians, three resident surgeons, two junior surgeons (practtici) six barber-surgeons (barberotti) and a phlebotomist for blood-letting who was helped by two assistants for the application of leeches, cataplasms and blisters. The principal surgeons and physicians served in teams in the hospital for a month at a time, overlapping with their successors for three days. They visited the wards daily and recorded on a tablet, which hung at the head of each bed, the food and remedies prescribed. A general consultation was obligatory once a week for all doctors and their salary was docked if they failed to attend it. A medical school was opened by the Jesuits in 1595, and  in 1676 the Holy Infirmary became a teaching hospital, with its own School of Anatomy and Surgery, established by Grand Master Nicholas Cotoner. Nursing was carried out by fourteen so-called servants or guardians (servi or guardi). Forty-four baptized slaves and Turks selected from the slave prison were forced to do the cleaning, washing and all the other menial work..

The distribution and serving of food to the sick at meal times was the duty of the novice knights. Service in the hospital was obligatory once a week for all novices at the Convent with members of each Langue having  a day of the week in which they were on duty. At the stroke of the big bell of St John's each morning the knights on duty processed to the hospital. The Langue of Provence was on duty on Sundays, Auvergne on Monday, France on Tuesday, Italy on Wednesday, Aragon on Thursday, Germany on Friday and Castille on Saturday. While there were knights who voluntarily  nursed the sick, the regular visits were confined to feeding the patients. A small table, covered with a cloth and with water and salt upon it was placed beside each bed. The food was brought into the middle of the ward where an official read out the name of each patient and the diet he had been ordered, which was then carried to the bedside by a knight. Great emphasis was placed on the importance of a proper diet in the care of the sick. Rice, vermicelli, herbs and chicken were provided for the very ill, while the stronger patients were offered meat.pigeon, game sausage and potatoes.

The knights and civilians were provided with silver soup bowls, cups, spoons, and plates, however the slaves and convicts were only given pewter utensils. The silver was provided to the Infirmary at various periods by the Langues of France, Italy and Aragon and also the Common Treasury. When the Order was still at Rhodes, the Arangonese knight Fra' Giovanni de Villaragut, Castellan of Amposta, had endowed the Infirmary with a yearly sum of money to meet the comfort of the sick including the provision of silver plate. It is for this reason that the crest of the Commandery of Villaragut was chosen in 1684 to mark the Holy Infirmary silver to facilitate its identification and safeguard against theft. By 1725 the Holy Infirmary possessed 1150 pieces of table silver but in 1795 owing to the financial predicament of the Order at that time part of this plate had been sold.

Reporting to the Infirmirian, were two knights called Prud Hommes or Comptrollers who were in charge of the expenditure of the hospital. They also distributed alms, soup and old linen to the poor and supervised the management of the hot baths and mercurial anointing. The Prud Hommes  had their own secretar(scrivano), who noted everything that concerned their work in separate books. They supervised the work of the  linciere who was a secular, in charge of the linen, furniture, laundry and hospital equipment, making sure that everything was properly maintained and repaired. A steward or butler (bottigliere)was in charge of  the wine bread and oil etc which was supplied to the patients according to the vouchers of the comptrollers. An under clerk noted the food prescribed by the doctors and handed the list to the comptrollers. The armourer (armoriere)  was usually a servant-at-arms who was responsible for looking after the cleanliness and security of the silver plate. Two cooks, a purveyor and assistants provided meat for the allowances, which they could not receive in the kitchen until inspected by the comptrollers.

Following the capture of the Malta by Napoleon in 1798 and the expulsion of the Order of St John, the Holy Infirmary was taken over by the French for their sick soldiers and sailors. When the French left Malta two years later the former Holy Infirmary remained in use by the British garrison until 1920, when a new hospital was built at Mtarfa. The old hospital was then turned into the headquarters of the Malta police. At the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939 the police evacuated the building which was hit and severely damaged by the aerial bombardment. Of the great complex of hospital buildings, only the Great Ward, the oldest part of the Holy Infirmary survived. It is used today as The Mediterranean Conference Centre.

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