The Knights of Malta: Life in Malta [Repost]

Despite the clear militarism of the order as the Knights transformed an otherwise desolate island into a flourishing Mediterranean community boasting an impressively fortified capital and signaling their renewed naval activity, hospitals were in fact some of the first projects undertaken on Malta with the main hospital for example being expanded to accommodate 500 patients and becoming world renowned as one of the finest at the vanguard of medicine. Valletta would even go on to be recognized as a centre of art and culture as buildings like St. John’s Co-Cathedral were completed and became home to works by masters like Caravaggio. Over the latter part of the eighteenth century the public library, university, and School of Mathematics and Nautical Sciences would be established. Unfortunately their defeat to Napoleon in 1798 and subsequent dispersion across Europe while not outright destroying them diminished the Order’s influence while pushing them to headquarter in Rome where the Knights of Malta have repurposed themself toward humanitarian and religious causes.