Mdina

Outspread on a hill in the centre of the Mediterranean island of Malta, lies the ancient fortified citadel of Mdina.

The first written records of this site date back to 350 BC, when the area was described as being inhabited by Carthaginians from North Africa. By 218 BC, the city had been captured by the Romans during the second Punic War.

During Roman times, the city walls extended over a wider area than they do today. The city was reduced to roughly its present size to improve its defences by a Byzantine garrison that was stationed there in around the 8^th century AD. In AD 870, the city was captured by the Aghlabids, and building techniques originating in this period are part of the legacy of the citadel.

The Romans had referred to the place as ‘Melite’, yet it was simply called Mdina (pronounced imdina and meaning ‘the city’) by the inhabitants. The historic town outside its massive limestone walls is called Rabat.

The remains of a grand Roman house or domus, with a peristylum (peristyle), Doric columns and exquisite polychrome mosaic paving, are still extant in Rabat, just outside the present-day enceinte of Mdina’s fortifications.

These relics from classical Roman times were unearthed in the 19^th century, during the archaeological excavation of an ancient extramural Aghlabid cemetery which was laid out on top of the Roman ruins. Rabat also contains a large number of early Christian catacombs.

By the late Middle Ages, the city had moved from the hands of the Aghlabids to the Normans, the Swabians, the Angevins and the Aragonese, all of whom also ruled neighbouring Sicily. According to Sicilian practice, Mdina was honoured with a title and called ‘Notabile’.

Up to the 16^th century, all social, religious and political life in Malta was concentrated around Mdina and Rabat. It is recorded that a cathedral was built in Mdina as far back as 1299, although it is possible that a religious building already stood there much earlier. This is the same site of Malta’s present-day Baroque cathedral, which was built in the late 17^th century following a devastating earthquake in 1693 that especially affected Sicily further north, almost completely destroying the city of Catania.

The high bastion walls of Mdina, built out of the local Maltese limestone, were constructed to provide protection against raids by Barbary corsairs and other assailants. When watch guards along the Maltese coast caught sight of menacing ships sailing towards Malta across the sea, they would send signals to Mdina. The population from the surrounding countryside would rush to take refuge behind the walls of the citadel. The islands of Malta and Gozo were frequently under attack, with corsairs raiding the villages and taking the inhabitants into slavery.

The Order of the Knights of St John arrived in Malta in the 16^th century, after they were ousted from the island of Rhodes by the Turks. In Malta, the Knights shifted the centre of power away from the old capital city of Mdina in the centre of the island. They built their new fortified city named Valletta near the main harbour. Mdina became known as ‘la città vecchia’ (‘the old city’)

In the early 18^th century, the Portuguese Grand Master of the Knights of St John, Fra Antonio Manoel de Vilhena, commissioned his French architect, Charles François de Mondion, to create new designs that attempted to transform the old medieval citadel into a modern European baroque city, with two imposing new gates, grand palaces and a remodelled main thoroughfare leading from the gate to the main square of the citadel.

However, the winding narrow roads behind this grandiose entrance speak a different language. Here we see an inward-looking, traditional cubic architecture, characterized by simple flat-roofed exterior façades and shady internal courtyards.