Grand Harbour and the Saluting Battery. Perhaps the oldest saluting battery still in operation in the world.
These guns have protected the harbour against naval assault for about 500 years, since the building of Valletta
following the Great Siege of 1565. During that conflict, the whole of the Valletta promontory was overrun by the
Ottomans, who built several powerful batteries to keep the Knights of St John and the Maltese contained within
Fort St Angelo and in the walled towns of Vittorioso and Senglea, on the other side of the harbour. After the
siege ended, the Order of St John enlisted aid from the crowned heads of Europe and the Pope to build a new
fortified city, Valletta, including this multi-tiered artillery platform.