The world's smallest EU capital, built by knights — Caravaggio left his masterpiece here
Valletta (0.8 km², 6,000 residents — the smallest national capital in the EU by area) was purpose-built in 54 years by the Knights of St. John following the Great Siege of 1565, designed on a military grid by Michelangelo's pupil Francesco Laparelli. Every major building from the 16th and 17th centuries survives intact: St. John's Co-Cathedral (where Caravaggio's 'The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist' hangs, the only painting he ever signed), the Grand Master's Palace, the Auberges of the Knights. The food scene runs from pastizzi (ricotta or mushy-pea flaky pastry, €0.70) to Michelin-star…
The Great Siege of Malta (May–September 1565) was a four-month Ottoman assault by 40,000 troops against 9,000 Knights Hospitaller and Maltese defenders. The defense succeeded — barely — and Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette immediately commissioned a new fortified city on the Mount Sciberras peninsula. Construction began 1566; by 1571 (when de la Valette died) the basic grid was complete. The architect Francesco Laparelli (who had worked on St. Peter's Basilica under Michelangelo) designed the street grid; his assistant Gerolamo Cassar designed most of the individual buildings whose fac…