Layers of MICAS (Part 2): the Floriana lines and San Salvatore bastion

A primer on the Floriana Lines, the fortifications into which MICAS is now incorporated

Check out the first part of this series, with the story of the old Ospizio

Walk into the Sa Maison Gardens, to witness the majesty of Ugo Rondinone’s The Radiant, MICAS’s first public acquisition since the start of works on the San Salvatore counterguard.

Across the Msida creek, the sight of Fort Manoel and Fort Tigné completes one of the oldest seascapes taking us back to a past in which the Mediterranean Sea, and Malta, was a contested battleground between geopolitical spheres of influence and faith.

Here, MICAS is ensconced in these layers of history – but what are the purposes of the bastions, counterguards, curtains, lunettes and ravelins that envelope Malta’s newest contemporary arts museum?

Check out this primer of the elaborate Floriana Lines, where we guide you visually and chronologically on their construction in 1636 by the military engineer Pietro Paolo Floriani – whose name is today that of the suburb once known as Borgo Vilhena – to understand better the names of the fortifications housing Malta International Contemporary Arts Space.

A map of the Floriana Lines: MICAS is located right by the La Vittoria Bastion

The Floriana Lines – 1640

First, some history: the Floriana Lines were built as a second line of defence well after the Great Siege of 1565, in a bid to protect the Valletta Land Front from new technological developments that had increased the range of artillery.

The Knights of the Order of St John commenced works in 1636, with the lines still incomplete by the time they were considered partially defensible in 1640.

After the Ottoman navy took Candia (present-day Heraklion) in 1669, more alterations started being added to the lines by the military engineer Maurizio Valperga, with additions being built well into the 18^th century.

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The San Salvatore Counterguard, and the faussebraye that houses the Sa Maison Gardens, viewed from the road below at the Msida Marina

The Polverista Curtain

If you walk by the Msida marina, you can see the Polverista Curtain – a long, casemated curtain wall that joins the Msida Bastion on the left, which houses the Msida Bastion Historic Cemetery today, and the La Vittoria Bastion on the right. The Maltese armed forces’ naval base, at Haywharf, is right beneath the Polverista Curtain. Its title comes from the construction of a gunpowder factory on the site, erected in the late 17^th century after its removal from Valletta, which is why the structure is enclosed within a high-walled rectangular enclosure.

Sa Maison and the Skewed Arch

The Sa Maison gardens (Ġnien tal-Milorda) are inside a protective faussebraye, which is actually part of a wall that stretches along the entire width of the land front of Floriana, added by Valperga in 1670. The wall served as a shield for the base of the main ramparts.

To understand the scale of this wall, it was in the 1720s that the Portes des Bombes – today the main gateway to Floriana and Valletta – was built into the faussebraye as a single gateway arch.

Keep walking to the end of the Sa Maison gardens to find the large, skewed arch, known as the ‘arcone’, a design attributed to the Maltese architect G. Barbara. Today the skewed arch is integrated within the four-storey structure of MICAS. This arch provided an internal communication tunnel that leads to a set of three countermine galleries inside the counterguard.

The large, skewed arch, known as the ‘arcone’, a design attributed to the Maltese architect G. Barbara

The San Salvatore Counterguard

While you’re in the Sa Maison garden, know that you are also standing beneath the San Salvatore Counterguard.

The counterguard further protected the Bastion of Provence (also know as the San Salvatore Bastion). The San Salvatore counterguard is a massive earthen massif, that was used to reinforce the Bastion of Provence. It contains a number of gun platforms.

The San Salvatore Counterguard will be the site of MICAS’s sculpture garden, to be completed in 2026.

The MICAS Galleries are located in the section of the fortification that is at the edge of the Counterguard where the skewed arch ends.

The green space within the San Salvatore Counterguard will be the site of the MICAS Sculpture Garden

The San Salvatore bastion

Once you enter the main MICAS esplanade, with the MICAS Galleries to your right, you will encounter the large San Salvatore Bastion (or Bastion of Provence), which was actually constructed before the counterguard.

In WWII, the bastion was equipped with two gun emplacements. In peacetime, it hosts government offices.

Originally, the San Salvatore Bastion was a large, retrenched bastion with its own built-in ritirata. In the 18^th century, the new layout came to include the San Salvatore counterguard and a ditch.

The bastion also contains various communication passages and sally-ports, one of which opens out into the MICAS esplanade.

The MICAS esplanade. On the left, one can see the Bastion of Provence, which is used to house various government offices

The La Vittoria Bastion

You will spot the La Vittoria Bastion, as the site of Conrad Shawcross’s Beacons, as well as the structure for MICAS’s art workshops and residences.

Built after 1670, the bastion consists of two parts – the upper level with a courtyard enveloped by the casemates, and a terrace platform with cannon embrasures; and a lower level consisting of vaulted interior spaces and magazines. One of the rooms inside the interior was converted into a 19th century gunpowder magazine.

The various levels of the bastion are still linked by flights of steps and two sally-ports, with a third opening providing access to the countermine inside the Bastion of Provence.

MICAS Beacons, by Conrad Shawcross

Layers of MICAS (Part 2): the Floriana lines and San Salvatore bastion

A primer on the Floriana Lines, the fortifications into which MICAS is now incorporated

Check out the first part of this series, with the story of the old Ospizio

Walk into the Sa Maison Gardens, to witness the majesty of Ugo Rondinone’s The Radiant, MICAS’s first public acquisition since the start of works on the San Salvatore counterguard.

Across the Msida creek, the sight of Fort Manoel and Fort Tigné completes one of the oldest seascapes taking us back to a past in which the Mediterranean Sea, and Malta, was a contested battleground between geopolitical spheres of influence and faith.

Here, MICAS is ensconced in these layers of history – but what are the purposes of the bastions, counterguards, curtains, lunettes and ravelins that envelope Malta’s newest contemporary arts museum?

A map of the Floriana Lines: MICAS is located right by the La Vittoria Bastion

The Floriana Lines – 1640

First, some history: the Floriana Lines were built as a second line of defence well after the Great Siege of 1565, in a bid to protect the Valletta Land Front from new technological developments that had increased the range of artillery.

The Knights of the Order of St John commenced works in 1636, with the lines still incomplete by the time they were considered partially defensible in 1640.

After the Ottoman navy took Candia (present-day Heraklion) in 1669, more alterations started being added to the lines by the military engineer Maurizio Valperga, with additions being built well into the 18^th century.

The Polverista Curtain

Sa Maison and the Skewed Arch

The Sa Maison gardens (Ġnien tal-Milorda) are inside a protective faussebraye, which is actually part of a wall that stretches along the entire width of the land front of Floriana, added by Valperga in 1670. The wall served as a shield for the base of the main ramparts.

To understand the scale of this wall, it was in the 1720s that the Portes des Bombes – today the main gateway to Floriana and Valletta – was built into the faussebraye as a single gateway arch.

The San Salvatore Counterguard

While you’re in the Sa Maison garden, know that you are also standing beneath the San Salvatore Counterguard.

The counterguard further protected the Bastion of Provence (also know as the San Salvatore Bastion). The San Salvatore counterguard is a massive earthen massif, that was used to reinforce the Bastion of Provence. It contains a number of gun platforms.

The San Salvatore Counterguard will be the site of MICAS’s sculpture garden, to be completed in 2026.

The MICAS Galleries are located in the section of the fortification that is at the edge of the Counterguard where the skewed arch ends.

The San Salvatore bastion

Once you enter the main MICAS esplanade, with the MICAS Galleries to your right, you will encounter the large San Salvatore Bastion (or Bastion of Provence), which was actually constructed before the counterguard.

In WWII, the bastion was equipped with two gun emplacements. In peacetime, it hosts government offices.

Originally, the San Salvatore Bastion was a large, retrenched bastion with its own built-in ritirata. In the 18^th century, the new layout came to include the San Salvatore counterguard and a ditch.

The bastion also contains various communication passages and sally-ports, one of which opens out into the MICAS esplanade.

The La Vittoria Bastion

You will spot the La Vittoria Bastion, as the site of Conrad Shawcross’s Beacons, as well as the structure for MICAS’s art workshops and residences.

The various levels of the bastion are still linked by flights of steps and two sally-ports, with a third opening providing access to the countermine inside the Bastion of Provence.

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Layers of MICAS (Part 2): the Floriana lines and San Salvatore bastion

A primer on the Floriana Lines, the fortifications into which MICAS is now incorporated

Walk into the Sa Maison Gardens, to witness the majesty of Ugo Rondinone’s The Radiant, MICAS’s first public acquisition since the start of works on the San Salvatore counterguard.

Across the Msida creek, the sight of Fort Manoel and Fort Tigné completes one of the oldest seascapes taking us back to a past in which the Mediterranean Sea, and Malta, was a contested battleground between geopolitical spheres of influence and faith.

Here, MICAS is ensconced in these layers of history – but what are the purposes of the bastions, counterguards, curtains, lunettes and ravelins that envelope Malta’s newest contemporary arts museum?

A map of the Floriana Lines: MICAS is located right by the La Vittoria Bastion

The Floriana Lines – 1640

First, some history: the Floriana Lines were built as a second line of defence well after the Great Siege of 1565, in a bid to protect the Valletta Land Front from new technological developments that had increased the range of artillery.

The Knights of the Order of St John commenced works in 1636, with the lines still incomplete by the time they were considered partially defensible in 1640.

After the Ottoman navy took Candia (present-day Heraklion) in 1669, more alterations started being added to the lines by the military engineer Maurizio Valperga, with additions being built well into the 18th century.

The Polverista Curtain

Sa Maison and the Skewed Arch

The Sa Maison gardens (Ġnien tal-Milorda) are inside a protective faussebraye, which is actually part of a wall that stretches along the entire width of the land front of Floriana, added by Valperga in 1670. The wall served as a shield for the base of the main ramparts.

To understand the scale of this wall, it was in the 1720s that the Portes des Bombes – today the main gateway to Floriana and Valletta – was built into the faussebraye as a single gateway arch.

The San Salvatore Counterguard

While you’re in the Sa Maison garden, know that you are also standing beneath the San Salvatore Counterguard.

The counterguard further protected the Bastion of Provence (also know as the San Salvatore Bastion). The San Salvatore counterguard is a massive earthen massif, that was used to reinforce the Bastion of Provence. It contains a number of gun platforms.

The San Salvatore Counterguard will be the site of MICAS’s sculpture garden, to be completed in 2026.

The MICAS Galleries are located in the section of the fortification that is at the edge of the Counterguard where the skewed arch ends.

The San Salvatore bastion

Once you enter the main MICAS esplanade, with the MICAS Galleries to your right, you will encounter the large San Salvatore Bastion (or Bastion of Provence), which was actually constructed before the counterguard.

In WWII, the bastion was equipped with two gun emplacements. In peacetime, it hosts government offices.

Originally, the San Salvatore Bastion was a large, retrenched bastion with its own built-in ritirata. In the 18th century, the new layout came to include the San Salvatore counterguard and a ditch.

The bastion also contains various communication passages and sally-ports, one of which opens out into the MICAS esplanade.

The La Vittoria Bastion

You will spot the La Vittoria Bastion, as the site of Conrad Shawcross’s Beacons, as well as the structure for MICAS’s art workshops and residences.

The various levels of the bastion are still linked by flights of steps and two sally-ports, with a third opening providing access to the countermine inside the Bastion of Provence.

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After the Ottoman navy took Candia (present-day Heraklion) in 1669, more alterations started being added to the lines by the military engineer Maurizio Valperga, with additions being built well into the 18^th century.

Originally, the San Salvatore Bastion was a large, retrenched bastion with its own built-in ritirata. In the 18^th century, the new layout came to include the San Salvatore counterguard and a ditch.

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