Chapel of St. Anne: A Historic Roman Catholic Chapel within Fort Saint Elmo
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Malta
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Knights Hospitaller
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Chapel
On this page6 sections
History
The Chapel of St. Anne is a Roman Catholic chapel in Valletta, Malta, whose existence was first documented in 1488. It may have been founded earlier, and it predates both Fort Saint Elmo and Valletta. The chapel is described as the oldest surviving structure on the Sciberras Peninsula. Its architecture combines late Renaissance and Baroque elements.
Origins and Incorporation into the Fort
The chapel may originally have been dedicated to Saint Erasmus of Formia, an early Christian bishop and martyr also known as Saint Elmo. When the Order of St John, a Catholic religious and military order that ruled Malta, began constructing Fort Saint Elmo in 1552, the chapel was incorporated into the fortress walls and dedicated to Saint Anne.
The Great Siege
On 23 June 1565, during the Great Siege of Malta, the Ottoman assault on Malta, Ottoman troops captured Fort Saint Elmo. The fort’s defenders made their final stand inside the chapel. Their resistance delayed the Ottoman advance against the Order of St John’s remaining strongholds at Birgu and Senglea.
Seventeenth-Century Repair and Later Conservation
The chapel was repaired and its interior embellished during the mid-seventeenth-century magistracy of Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, a Grand Master of the Order of St John. Its present configuration dates from this period. In 2008, it was scheduled as a Grade 1 monument and listed in the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. Restoration took place between 2012 and 2015 as part of a rehabilitation project for Fort Saint Elmo.
Remains
The chapel stands within Fort Saint Elmo near a gate known as the Porta del Soccorso. Its narrow limestone facade is set into the fortification walls and contains a door and a window, preserving the close physical relationship between the chapel and the surrounding defensive structure.
Interior and Devotional Features
Inside, a barrel vault is finished with a coffered ceiling. The walls are generally plain, while the altar wall is concentrated around an altar placed in an arched alcove richly decorated with seventeenth-century stone carvings. A fifteenth-century Madonna and Child icon is also kept in the chapel. The Hospitallers brought the icon to Malta from Lepanto in Greece.
