On 20 February 1578, St John’s in Valletta was consecrated, a major milestone in the making of Malta’s new capital after the Great Siege. At the time, it was not yet a “co-cathedral” in the modern sense, but the conventual church of the Order of St John: the spiritual heart of the Knights inside the new fortified city they were building. The church had been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière and designed by Girolamo Cassar, the same architect behind several of V