Valletta is a city of palaces but for the Maltese, the Grand Masters’ Palace is known simply as il-Palazz, the Palace. In its finished form the Palace is built on two floors and occupies an entire block. The two main portals, Baroque and imposing, stand in direct contrast to the unadorned treatment of the rest of the façade; three other side entrances give on to as many streets.

Three of the doorways lead to a spacious courtyard which is on a slightly higher level. The larger of the two courtyards is known as Neptune’s Courtyard from a bronze statue of that god. The smaller courtyard – Prince Alfred’s Courtyard, is named after one of Queen Victoria’s sons to commemorate his visit to Malta in 1858, but this courtyard is better known as that of Pinto’s Clock. This clock has four dials showing, besides the time, the day, the month and the phases of the moon. The hours are struck by bronze effigies of Moorish slaves wielding sledge-hammers. It is said to be the work of Maltese clockmaker Gaetano Vella and built in 1745.

As in Renaissance palaces in Italy, the important storey was the Piano Nobile, the first floor; the ground floor being used as stables, service quarters and stores.

The Main Staircase leading up to the Piano Nobile was built by Grand Master Hughes de Loubenx Verdala as advertised by the wolf in his coat of arms. The top of the staircase gives on to a lobby formed by the angle where two of the palace corridors meet.

The right-hand passage leads to what used to be the Palace Armoury but that part of the building is now the seat of the House of Representatives (the Parliamentary Assembly is composed of only one chamber, there is no Upper House).

The lunettes over the windows in this passage are the work of Nicolo Nasoni da Siena and were painted in the first quarter of the 18th century. Their opposite numbers were painted by the Maltese artist Giovanni Bonello some hundred and sixty years later; the whole set, however, is complementary and shows Maltese and Gozitan landscapes as they appeared at those times.

A notable hall in the Armoury Corridor is the Council, or Tapestry, Chamber, which was the place where the members of the Order sat in Council. This chamber was also the seat of the Malta Parliament from 1921 until 1974, before the House moved to its present situation.

On being elected to that high office, a Grand Master was expected to make a gift to the Order – the Gioja.

Part of the Gioja of Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Rocaful is the priceless set of Gobelins Tapestries that give the name to this chamber. Perellos was elected in 1697 but it was only in 1710 that these tapestries were completed and hung in the place for which they had been created. Les Tentures des Indes (the Indian Tapestries) is a vague title for a magnificient rendering of fauna and flora from three continents, the Noble Savage being also very much in evidence.

To the left-hand of the lobby at the top of the Main Staircase is another corridor, known as the Entrance Corridor; this too, like the Armoury Corridor is decorated with paintings by Nicolo Nasoni, but this time the subject chosen for the decoration of the lunettes are scenes of naval battles between the Order’s galleys and those of the Ottoman Turks, apparently a subject dear to the hearts of these seafaring Knights.

The first door to the right of the lobby leads into the State Dining Room; here the British connection is well represented by several Royal portraits. The next door down the Entrance Corridor leads to the Hall of the Supreme Council, also known as the Throne Room. Like all the other ceilings of this hall is elaborately coffered and painted, but the item of greatest interest in this hall is a frieze of twelve frescoes by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio who worked in Malta between 1576 and 1581.

Against the far end of the wall is the throne, occupied in turn, by the Grand Masters and the British Governors. Above the throne are now the arms of the Republic of Malta.

Across the hall and opposite the throne a carved minstrels’ gallery is let into the wall; this carved and painted gallery is said to have been part of the Order’s flagship, the Great Carrack of Rhodes, which was one of the vessels that carried the Knights to Malta.

A door from the Throne Room leads to the Ambassadors’ Room, also known as the Red Room from the colours of its damask hanging.

In one of the panels, Knights of the Order are shown holding shields bearing the white eight-pointed (or Maltese) cross on a red back-ground; this could be poetic licence on the part of the painter because the battle standard of the Order was plain white cross on a red background, something like the Danish Flag. A door from the Ambassadors’ Room leads to the Paggeria, the Pages’ waiting room, also known as the Yellow Room from the gold damask covering of its walls.

A door from the Pages’ Waiting Room leads into a corridor which is at a right angle to the Entrance Corridor. This corridor is known as the Prince of Wales’ Corridor in commemoration of a visit by King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales in 1862. The rooms giving on to this passage were formerly the private apartment of the Grand Master, afterwards they were used as the offices of the British Governors. These rooms are now the offices of the President of the Republic.

The private chapel of the Grand Master was turned into an office for the use of the Governor’s Secretary and the minstrels’ gallery that was in it, removed to the Throne Room where it still is. The paintings in this chapel are probably the earliest found in the palace and show episodes from the life of St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the Order that bears his name.

The Knights frowned upon the use of firearms as being unchivalrous but they were obliged to move with the times.

The collection, as presently displayed, is small but interesting; in the old Armoury, and even more so in engravings of the Armoury as it was at one time, one is impressed by the great number of exhibits, but on the other hand, many of the specimens were repetitious, to the serious student a specimen collection is more interesting.

At the time of the arrival of the Order in Malta, in 1530, the use of firearms was well on the way to revolutionizing warfare – the Great Siege was fought largely with artillery and arquebuses but armour still had its uses – a century later breastplates and shields were still being tested against firearms – in the Armoury there are several examples with dents in them to prove that they were “bulletproof”.