Valletta - National Library of Malta

(Local Name: Bibliothecca) Queen's Square is bounded on the south side by the National Library of Malta, housed in the last building erected by the Knights (1796). The Library was founded by the Knights in 1650, and soon developed into one of the largest public libraries in the world.

In addition to 30,000 modern books and portraits of benefactors of the library, it contains valuable collections of old manuscripts and documents relating to the Order of St John, including a Bull by Pope Paschal II establishing the Order and the Act of Donation by which the Emperor Charles V granted possession of Malta to the Order. The national library houses a plethora of source material including the archives of the Order of St John. The Italian Stefano Ittar designed the library. In 1612 a law was enacted which forbade a knight's own volumes from being disposed of after his death and the library steadily grew from these and other bequests.

Today the Bibliothecca houses all the written records of the Order from 1107 to 1798 including the Procession Nobilari, a knight's proof of his maternal and paternal lines of nobility, which were required to ensure his acceptance into the Order.

Also stored here are documents of Baldwin I of Jerusalem, the papal bull of Paschal II sanctioning the Order in 1113 and Charles V's 1530 donation of the islands to the Order.