On a walking tour of ‘financial Valletta’

It’s obvious that Valletta is essentially a small city. Unlike the big (and even not so big) other capitals in Europe, it has no financial district to speak of. New York boasts of its Midtown Manhattan, London its City and Canary Wharf districts, Frankfurt its Bankenviertal, and even the Delhi (Connaught Place) and Algiers (its Bab Ezzouar) cities, are all specific conglomerations of buildings occupied only by banks and other finance houses.

The fact, however, remains that in Malta, over time, banks and similar organisations did occupy buildings spread all over Valletta. But not a specific financial district, and effectively a spread that would make a tour of ‘financial Valletta’ in essence a tour of the whole of Valletta.

In historic terms, pride of honour should perhaps be given to the building in Republic Street (close to St George’s Square) which is presently used by Malta’s foremost gentlemen’s club, the Casino Maltese. That edifice was first used by the Knights of St John from around 1744 to house its Comun Tesoro, i.e. that body within the Order responsible for the vast majority of its financial functions. In reality, these operations included many of an essentially...