Merchants Street
Long shopping thoroughfare lined with auberges, palazzi, churches and a centuries-old pawn office.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Merchants Street in Valletta follows the money to one doorway, number forty-six, and to a Portuguese knight who in January fifteen ninety-eight put up two thousand scudi to take on the city's moneylenders. Along the way it touches pawned rings and auctions, a fund for ransoming Christian slaves, and what the French did when the Maltese rose against them. Stand across from number forty-six to see its Baroque front as you listen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Republic Street
Pedestrian main street running from the city gate past palaces, squares and an open-air theatre ruin.
National Library of Malta
Late-Baroque library of the Knights of St John, holding the Order's archives and a twelfth-century papal bull.
Bażilika Santwarju tal-Madonna tal-Karmnu
Carmelite basilica with a towering oval dome, rebuilt after wartime ruin and rich in knights' gifts.
Auberge de Castille
Spanish Baroque knights' palace crowned by a bronze Grand Master bust, now the prime minister's office.
Lower Barrakka
Quiet bastion garden around a Greek-style temple monument, overlooking the harbour entrance.