Church of Our Lady of Victory, Valletta
church in Valletta, Malta
The Our Lady of Victory Church, formerly known as the Saint Anthony the Abbot Church, was the first church and building completed in Valletta, Malta. In 1566, following the Great Siege of Malta, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette and his Order showed interest to build a church in the name of the Nativity of the Virgin as a form of thanksgiving; the construction was funded by de Valette.
Origins
The church was built to commemorate the victory of the Knights of the Order of St John and the Maltese over the Ottoman invaders on 8 September 1565. It was built on the site where a religious ceremony was held to inaugurate the laying of the foundation stone of the new city of Valletta on 28 March 1566. A church was chosen as the first building in order to express gratitude. Not only is the church dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin, but the titular painting is situated behind the main altar as well and it depicts the birth of the Blessed Virgin.
Grandmaster Jean Parisot de Valette funded the building's construction. He died of a fever on 21 August 1568 and was entombed in the crypt of the church. However, when St. John's Co-Cathedral was built, his remains were moved to there.
“Church of Our Lady of Victory, Valletta” enters the record as church in Valletta, Malta. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Church, Lady and Victory can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Church of Our Lady of Victory, Valletta” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Church, Lady and Victory provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1280925. VIAF identifies the subject as 142368613. Authority coordinates are 35.896, 14.511. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1566, 1565 and 1568.
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This entry incorporates text from “Church of Our Lady of Victory, 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.