Castellania (Valletta)
the former Court of Justice of the Order of St. John
The Castellania (Maltese: Il-Kastellanija; Italian: La Castellania), also known as the Castellania Palace (Maltese: Il-Palazz Kastellanja; Italian: Palazzo Castellania), is a former courthouse and prison in Valletta, Malta that currently houses the country's health ministry. It was built by the Order of St. John between 1757 and 1760, on the site of an earlier courthouse which had been built in 1572.
The building was built in the Baroque style to design of the architect Francesco Zerafa, and completed by Giuseppe Bonici. It is a prominent building in Merchants Street, having an ornate façade with an elaborate marble centrepiece. Features of the interior include former court halls, a chapel, prison cells, a statue of Lady Justice at the main staircase and an ornate fountain in the courtyard.
From the late 18th to the early 19th century, the building was also known by a number of names, including the Palazzo del Tribunale, the Palais de Justice and the Gran Corte della Valletta. By the mid-19th century the building was deemed too small, and the courts were gradually moved to Auberge d'Auvergne between 1840 and 1853. The Castellania was then abandoned, before being briefly converted into an exhibition centre, a tenant house and a school.
In 1895, the building was converted into the head office of the Public Health Department.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Castellania (Valletta)” as the former Court of Justice of the Order of St. John. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as the former Court of Justice of the Order of St. John. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5049687. Authority coordinates are 35.897, 14.513. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1757, 1760, 1572 and 1840.
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This entry incorporates text from “Castellania (Valletta)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.