The Three Cities

Collectively known as the Three Cities, individually, the towns by the harbour, Birgu, Bormla and Senglea are the names by which they are most commonly known. In the beginning there was Birgu, then a small fishing village sheltering behind a castle of unknown antiquity that stood at the very tip of the peninsula. The castle, as the Castrum Mares, or Castell'a Mare, is mentioned in several medievil documents. Apparently the Castellan had a measure of autonomy and was independent of the Universita', the municipal council with its seat at Medina, and it also appears that the people whose houses were outside the wall of this castle considered themselves as being under the jurisdiction of the Castellan and beyond that of the Universita' which led to much bad blood between the two bodies. On their arrival in 1530 the Knights decided to settle in Birgu as Medina was too far inland, and immediately set about protecting that hamlet with bastions. Castell'a Mare was strengthened and seperated from Birgu by a ditch. Not long afterwards, the adjacent peninsula, then uninhabited and known as l'Isla was likewise protected by bastions and by the time Claude de la Sengle was Grand Master it was sufficiently inhabited to merit the name of "Citta' Senglea" named, of course, after the Grand Master. During the Great Siege of 1565 the inhabitants of Birgu and Senglea showed such outstanding courage that the two towns recieved the honorific titles of Citta' Vittoriosa (the Victorious City), and Citta' Invitta (the Unconquered City) respectively. The conurbation that linked Birgu and Senglea was named "Bormla" and as successive Grand Masters enclosed all three cities with imposing lines of bastions, Bormla received
the title of Citta' Cospicua (the Noteworthy). As Valletta was being built, the Knights transferred their seat of goverment from Birgu to that town but the three cities were still very much the centre of the naval activities of the Order; here were the shipyards and the arsenals, and here lived the Maltese seamen and ship chandlers.
Piracy was a profession of long standing, but with the arrival of the Order, Maltese corsairs achieved respectability by operating under licence from the Grand Master; and by being taxed on their booty!  

Fort Sant'Angelo in Vittoriosa

Senglea

Church of Saint Lawrence in Birgu

Zabbar Church

The building of the Church of Our Lady of Graces was started in 1641 at the instigation of the Parish Priest Don Francesco Piscopo and was completed in 1660 according to one version, and in 1696 according to another. A Maltese proverb says "a church is never finished", which is another way of stating that the people in a particular parish are never satisfied with their own church and, depending on their means, are forever improving it, the moving spirit being the amibition that the church in one's village be better and bigger than the church in the next parish. The good people of Zabbar are no exception.
Largely from the private funds of the Parish Priest Andrea Buhagiar, in addition to money collected from people of Zabbar, work on embellishing the church was started in 1738.
The Maltese architect Giovanni Bonavia redesigned the facade and two belltowers were erected; in addition the church was paved in marble and provided with a crypt.
The main painting of the Madonna and Child is a work by the painter Alessio Erardi (1669-1727).