Valletta - St John's Co-Cathedral

On the south side of Great Siege Square is the famous "St John's Co-Cathedral (I673-77), one of Europe's finest churches, designed by Gerolamo Cassar, the first architect of the Order of St John. Dedicated to St John the Baptist, it was built at his own expense by the French Grand Master, Jean l'Evêque de la Cassière as the conventual church of the Order. In 1816 Pope Pius VII granted it the status of Co-Cathedral, ranking equal with Mdina Cathedral.

The facade, flanked by two square Renaissance towers, is relatively austere, and the doorway, surmounted by a balcony on which the Grand Masters presented themselves to the Knights after their election, is also very modest. After the knights left Birgu (Vittoriosa) in 1571, there was a need to replace St Lawrence's church with a new conventional church for the brotherhood of the entire Order of St John. Cassar designed a clean but heavy facade in homage to the austere military attitudes of the time.

Work commenced in the fall of 1573 on a simple but somewhat heavy Renaissance-influenced plan: a wide screen facade, an entrance between two Doric columns with bell-towers on either side (the spires of which were removed during World War II). The interior plan was also conventional, with a single rectangular nave underneath a great barrel vault with an apse at the northeast end and eight side chapels, one for each of the langues, between the massive reinforcing buttresses.

The church was consecrated on February 20, 1578, and was built and paid for by the French Grand Master de la Cassiere. Other parts of the building were added later; the sacristy in 1598, the oratory in 1603, and the loggia annexs in 1736. The two cannons date from 1600 and 1726; the former, with lion handles, bears the Battenburg coat of arms. The latter bears the arms of the Grand Master de Vilhena.