On Friday 27 May, at the Polverista (gunpowder rooms) in the Citadel, Gozo, the non-governmental organization Wirt Għawdex launched an A4 book – The Gran Castello at Rabat, Gozo – an appreciation of the civil architectural legacy (Malta, 2011; ISBN: 978-99957–0–039–3) by Godwin Vella, author of various studies, former secretary of Wirt Għawdex, and at present Senior Curator of the Ethnography Unit in Heritage Malta. This publication is one of the initiatives taken to mark the 30 years since Wirt Għawdex was set up.
I was given the task of designing, producing, and organizing the printing of the book. Both of text corrections and photos kept coming in until Monday 23 May. It was a battle with time.
In the prepress department at Gutenberg Press, Stefan Ciantar was extremely helpful in giving the final touches to my layout design. Blodwen Spiteri, accountant executive, promised to help in every way to make sure the publication would be delivered by the morning of Friday 27 May. The result… an excellent 56-page publication, full of beautiful photos accredited to Heritage Malta, John Cremona, Nicoline Sagona, author Godwin Vella, Kenneth Cassar, the Ministry for Gozo, and especially, photographer Daniel Cilia. The text is a scholarly researched study of the civil architecture of the Citadel, otherwise known to the knights of the Order as the Gran Castello.
When I was reading the text with details about the houses and fortifications inside the Castello, I could help but recall the experiences I had in this imposing historical and architectural jewel dominating the top of the central hill of my native Gozo. I nostalgically remembered an old aunt of a friend of my youth – with whom I lost touch many years ago – who used to go to Il-Belt, to a large house in which she kept poultry and rabbits. Another picture reminds me of another friend of mine – today living abroad – who, together with others our age, used to enter the forbidden territory surrounding the Gran Castello, which was full of World War II military equipment. Once he brought home a sword, which he hid in a sack full of nuħħala (bran) until two policemen called at his mother’s house to retrieve it following his friends’ betrayal.
As a young student at the Gozo Lyceum, I remember going up to a part of the bastions with class mates to play football for a photo shoot with a photographer from National Geographic to illustrate a feature on Malta in the world famous monthly magazine. I recall the days when, after heated discussions, part of the bastions facing the Gozo cathedral was demolished to build a large gate to ‘enable the passage of the statue of Our Lady Assunta during the procession, on the feast of the Assumption’.
Another image, now fading into oblivion, is that of Pawlu l-Kurdar (Paul the rope-maker) working on seemingly never-ending ropes of different thicknesses, in the long narrow street on the right-hand side of the cathedral.
The Citadel, as it is most popularly known, is an impressive little city-fortress, awe-inspiring to anyone approaching Victoria (Rabat) – the capital city of Gozo – whether from Marsalforn in the north, Għarb in the west, Ta’ Sannat in the south, or Mġarr in the east. The high fortification walls built round the uneven plateau, right on the edge of the sheer rock of the natural not so high hill in central Gozo, enclose a majestic cathedral (with a painted tromp-d’œil for an otherwise false dome), the Gozo bishop’s palace, Gozo’s Law Courts and old prisons, several standing old houses that have been rehabilitated as offices and museums, the old church of St Joseph, the Sentinella, the Gunpowder Rooms, World War II shelters, houses that have fallen into ruins, and uncultivated fields.
In the last 40 years or so, several projects have been undertaken by the government to restore parts of and rehabilitate the citadel. These included handing over the Sentinella, the gunpowder rooms, and, very recently, the old silos that were used to store corn in the days of the Knights, to Wirt Għawdex. In turn, this organisation, besides seeing to the restoration work needed and their upkeep, have turned the sites into tourist attractions with guided tours provided by its volunteer members free of charge all the year round.
Wirt Għawdex, which takes care of other sites – including Mġarr ix-Xini Tower and Santa Ċeċilja Medieval chapel – has now launched this new publication, The Gran Castello at Rabat, Gozo, the fifth in a series.
The study is profusely illustrated and includes three interesting appendices with data related to the people who dwelt in Gozo in 1667, the wells and cisterns in the Gran Castello and the amount of water they could hold, and the sites in ruins. Another appendix contains 20 precious photos assessing the condition of the sites in the Gran Castello in 1988, taken by Daniel Cilia, for Wirt Għawdex.
On the front cover of the book is a 1620s’ view of the Gran Castello – detail from the main altarpiece at Santa Marija Ta’ Savina church in Victoria, Gozo (Malta). The book is available from Wirt Għawdex, ‘Dar il-Lunzjata’ Wied il-Lunzjata, Rabat, VCT 1680, Għawdex (7977 1981), against a donation of €10.