Grand Master's Palace, Armoury, Casa Rocca Piccola & Knights' Auberges Guide

While St John's Co-Cathedral was the sacred heart of the Order of St John, the political, military, and aristocratic power of Valletta was exercised inside three distinct building types. These were the Grand Master's Palace on St George's Square, the eight monumental Auberges (Inns of the Langues) where the young knights lived and dined by nationality, and private aristocratic palazzi such as Casa Rocca Piccola. Pair this palace guide with our top things to do in Valletta and our Valletta travel guide.

01The Restored Grand Master's Palace and the Palace Armoury

The Grand Master's Palace occupies an entire city block facing St George's Square, built from 1571 onward by Girolamo Cassar around Neptune's Courtyard and the Pinto Clock Tower Courtyard. For over two centuries, it served as the seat of the Grand Masters of the Order of St John, and later as the British Governor's Palace. Until 2015 it housed Malta's Parliament, and today it serves as the official seat of the President of Malta.

Following a landmark €40 million restoration by Heritage Malta (€12.00 combined adult ticket as of November 2026), visitors can walk a full circuit through the Piano Nobile State Rooms and the Palace Armoury:

• The Piano Nobile Corridors and State Halls. Walk along the Prince of Wales and Uccelliera marble corridors lined with full suits of 16th-century tournament armour beneath illusionistic ceiling frescoes by Nicolau Nasoni. Above the walls, late-18th-century lunettes depict the naval victories of the Order's galleys. Step into the Hall of the Supreme Council (Hall of St Michael and St George), crowned by a continuous frieze painted in 1576 by Matteo Perez d'Aleccio. A pupil of Michelangelo, d'Aleccio recorded the day-by-day battles of the Great Siege of 1565. Next door lies the Tapestry Chamber, hung with the only complete surviving set of 18th-century French Gobelins "Tentures des Indes" tapestries depicting exotic flora and fauna of Brazil and the Caribbean.
• The Palace Armoury. One of the largest surviving collections of arms and armour still housed in its original building, displaying over 5,000 pieces. Highlights include full Italian and German steel plate harnesses worn during the 1565 siege, intricate damascened parade shields, Ottoman janissary scimitars and helmets, and early rifled matchlock muskets.

02Casa Rocca Piccola: Living Aristocratic History and a WWII Air-Raid Shelter

While the Grand Master's Palace shows the ceremonial scale of the Order, Casa Rocca Piccola at 74 Republic Street offers a look inside a private noble home. Guided tours run on the hour from 10:00 to 16:00 Monday to Saturday (€9.50 adult as of November 2026). It was built in the late 16th century for Admiral Don Pietro La Rocca and is still lived in today by Nicholas de Piro, the 9th Marquis de Piro. The palazzo opens more than a dozen rooms filled with 18th-century Maltese lace, silver surgical instruments from the Knights' hospital, and a cabinet-sized portable chapel. Outside lies a walled courtyard garden where Kiku the resident macaw greets guests. At the end of the tour, you descend a deep rock-cut staircase into the family's private World War II subterranean air-raid shelters, carved out of an ancient freshwater cistern 30 metres underground. Here over a hundred neighbours sheltered during Axis bombing raids.

03How to Spot Valletta's Five Surviving Knights' Auberges

Of the eight original Auberges (residences of the national Langues) built across Valletta in the 1570s and 1580s, five survive today (the Auberges of France, Auvergne, and Germany were destroyed by bombing in World War II):

1. Auberge de Castille (Castille Place, beside Upper Barrakka). Built for the Knights of Castile, León, and Portugal and sumptuously remodelled in 1741 under Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca. Its two-storey facade crowned by marble trophies of arms and Pinto's bronze bust is the masterpiece of Maltese secular Baroque.
2. Auberge d'Italie (Merchants Street 115 , now MUŻA). Home to the Italian Knights and redesigned in 1680 with a striking marble trophy of arms above the portal, it now houses MUŻA, Malta's National Community Art Museum (€10.00 adult).
3. Auberge de Provence (Republic Street 371). This palazzo houses the National Museum of Archaeology (€5.00), including its ornate upstairs Gran Salon where the Knights dined in silence while listening to scripture.
4. Auberge d'Aragon (Independence Square). The oldest surviving unaltered 1571 Cassar auberge, painted pale salmon-pink opposite St Paul's Pro-Cathedral.
5. Auberge de Bavière (St Sebastian Street, Lower Valletta). This auberge overlooks Marsamxett Harbour near the English Curtain.