Islamic architectural manifestations in eighteenth century Mdina

Abstract

An important characteristic of the historical building tradition in the Maltese Islands has been the utilization of substantial foundations composed of a heavy double skin limestone wall filled with compacted rubble and resting directly on the carefully prepared bedrock. Understandably, such foundation types invariably tended to be laborious to build and even more difficult to dismantle so that in the case of Malta one can recognize a historical tendency for successive stages of building to respect and utilize the presence of earlier foundations which, as a consequence, tended to ensure the preservation of the original planimetry of buildings. One logical implication of this tendency was that whereas stylistic change rapidly affected the elevational treatment of buildings, it was, because of the presence of earlier foundations, rather slow in affecting the planimetric distribution of the major spaces so that the basic plan types in the older settlements of Malta often tend to reflect traditions which probably antedate the arrival of the Order of St. John in 1530. A case in point which would seem to reflect the abov~ - mentioned tendencies and directions occurred in 1722 - 26 when the French architect Francois de Mondion was commissioned by Grand Master Vilhena to redesign the entrance area of Mdina a task including the dismantling of an earlier planimetric layout of Medieval antiquity which seems to have been slightly altered following the arrival of the Knights in 1530 to accommodate Grand' Master L'Isle Adam's box-like Magisterial Palace.