In 1522 the Order of St. John was expelled from the island of Rhodes by the Turks. They remained homeless until 1530, when Charles V, King of Spain, gave them Malta as a present. Under their Grandmaster Philippe Villiers De l'Isle, the Order was supposed to fight against the enemies of Christendom from here. The Knights of St. John first settled in the harbour town Birgu. During the first years of their settlement they were occupied with renewing the fortifications, which were originally built by the Byzantines, and with the erection of their first buildings in Birgu. Among these buildings were the convent church of the Order, the Grandmaster Palace and the hostels or auberges for each tongue or langue of the Order. Most of these houses were later destroyed, but some of the auberges in Birgu partly survived.
In spring 1565 the Turks attacked the island, but only a few months later they were successfully withdrawn by the Knights of St. John under their Grandmaster Jean Parisot de la Valette. The year of the Great Siege became one of the most important dates in Malta's history. It meant a turning-point for Malta - and consequently also for its architecture. A great part of the fortifications had been destroyed during the Great Siege. As their reconstruction would have wasted too much time and money, the Knights decided to build a new town instead. They chose a peninsula on the other side of the Grand Harbour as the building site for the town which was later to be called Valletta, today's capital of Malta.
