A tomb inside the crypt of the chapel in Fort Ricasoli at the entrance to Grand Harbour has been desecrated.

The fort was built by the Knights between 1670 and 1693 and occupies the promontory known as Gallows Point that forms the eastern arm of Grand Harbour and the north shore of Rinella Creek. Together with Fort St Elmo and Fort Tigné, it commands the approaches to Grand Harbour and Marsamxett Harbour.

It was designed by Italian military engineer Antonio Maurizio Valperga as part of Grand Master Nicholas Cottoner’s extensive fortifications around Grand Harbour and is named after the knight who financed a large part of the work, Fra Giovanni Francesco Ricasoli.

The chapel inside the fort was dedicated to St Nicholas but, as the NET TV programme Skoperti briefly showed last week, there is huge evidence of vandalism. What is worse is that it seems to have been allowed to go on for a long time.

Maybe those who desecrated the crypt were looking for a dead knight, in which case they seem to have been wrong because the tomb, as any research would have told them, was that of the priest who resided in the chapel.

Or maybe they were looking for buried treasure. According to the website mellieha.com, “The Maltese ghost is often referred to as ‘il-ħares’ (pl. iħirsa), perhaps a relative of the Roman ‘Lares’ (household gods). Once, a ħares in the form of a Turk awakened a workman at Fort Ricasoli (by Grand Harbour) and told him of a big treasure within the fort area. This workman told one of his colleagues and together they went to look at the indicated spot. They found a lot of coal coins. As in other local folk tales, the coins were turned to coal. The following night the ħares reappeared and beat up the workman for sharing the secret. The moral of this legend is: What the ħares tells you is for your ears only!”

In recent years, this huge fortress has been host to five epic movie sets, two representing ancient Rome: Universal’s Gladiator in 1999 and TNT/De Angelis’ Julius Caesar in 2002, and another two doubling for ancient Troy: USA Cable’s Helen of Troy in 2002 and Warner Bros’ epic Troy in 2003. In 2008, an enormous set recreating Alexandria in 300AD, including the library, was constructed for the three-month shoot of Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora. Fort Ricasoli was also used as the setting for a refugee camp in Munich in 2005).

The Fort is situated 200 metres from the Mediterranean Film Studios, and is controlled and managed by the Government Property Division and the Malta Film Commission but there is no evidence that the depredation took place while hundreds of extras were inside the fort during the shooting of any of the above-mentioned films.

In March 2003 a fund for the restoration and maintenance of Fort Ricasoli was launched by the Malta Film Commission and heritage group Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna. Money raised during an open day held by the commission at the fort the previous October was passed on to the fund administered by the FWA.

This is not, by any means, the first time that attention has been drawn to the appalling and shameful neglect of the fort. Writing in The Times last September, expert Edward Said said: “Some time ago, a news bulletin on national television carried a story on the state of Fort Ricasoli. Over the years I have followed the pitiful degradation of this historic monument and it was tragic to notice from the film shots aired that the battlements facing the sea have crumbled further since I last visited the area a year ago. The geotechnical problems are now seriously threatening the preservation of the entire structure.

“Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna chairman Mario Farrugia spoke ominous words about the fate of Malta’s largest fort if nothing is done. Should nature takes its course, the precarious cavern and fissure formation on either side of the peninsula will eventually be exacerbated by wave action resulting in the creation of an island, destroying Ricasoli forever.

“A golden opportunity to save this monument was lost when it was not included in the SmartCity master plan, and could have been fully restored as a planning gain just as forts Manoel and Tigné were, thanks to the Midi project.”