Vendôme Battery
artillery battery in Malta
Vendôme Battery (Maltese: Batterija ta' Vendôme), also known as Ta' Maċċu Battery (Maltese: Batterija ta' Maċċu), is an artillery battery near Armier Bay, limits of Mellieħa, Malta. It was built by the Order of Saint John in 1715–1716 as one of a series of coastal fortifications around the Maltese Islands.
History
Vendôme Battery was built in 1715–1716 as part of the first building programme of coastal batteries in Malta. It was part of a chain of fortifications that defended the northern coast of Malta, which also included Aħrax Tower, several batteries, redoubts and entrenchments. The nearest fortifications to Vendôme Battery are Qortin Redoubt to the west and Crivelli Redoubt to the east.
The battery was named after Philippe de Vendôme, the Prior of France, who donated 40,000 scudi to construct batteries and redoubts around Malta's coastline. Several other fortifications were named after Vendôme, including a tour-reduit in Marsaxlokk and a number of redoubts.
Vendôme Battery was one of the largest batteries to be built in Malta. It has a semi-circular gun platform, having a parapet with nine embrasures. A blockhouse is located at the centre of the battery, and its land front contains a large redan.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21483147. Authority coordinates are 35.990, 14.354. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1715 and 1716.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vendôme Battery” 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.