Valletta - General Post Office

(Local Name: Auberge d'Italie) 0pposite the Palazzo Parisio is the Auberge d'Italie, built by Gerolamo Cassar in 1574 and altered at the end of the 17th C. in the time of Grand Master, Gregorio Carafa (1680-90), whose coat of arms appears above the doorway.

The duty of the Italian knights was to defend the immediate bastions of St Peter and St Paul; the post of admiral of the fleet was traditionally the sinecure of their pilier. The Cassar designed this auberge as a single-story edifice and it displays a typical example of his one major architectural hallmark, the use of massive and rusticated quoins - the eternal corners of walls. The Italian Grand Master Cerafa added a top floor in 1683, as well as an