St John's Co-Cathedral
St John's Co-Cathedral is a Catholic co-cathedral in Valletta, Malta, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. It was built by the Order of St. John between 1573 and 1578, having been commissioned by Grand Master Jean de la Cassière as the Conventual Church of Saint John (Maltese: Knisja Konventwali ta' San Gwann).
The church was designed by the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar, who designed several of the more prominent buildings in Valletta. In the 17th century, its interior was redecorated in the Baroque style by Mattia Preti and other artists. The interior of the church is considered to be one of the finest examples of high Baroque architecture in Europe.
Following the Great Siege of 1565, St. John's Co-Cathedral was commissioned in 1572 by Jean de la Cassière, Grand Master of the Order of St. John. It was initially named, in the Italian common language of the time, as Chiesa Conventuale di San Giovanni Battista. The church was designed by the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar, who also designed and oversaw the construction of many important buildings in Valletta.[6][7] It is held that Cassar went to Rhodes to bring a plan of an already existing church that was by then converted to a mosque, to use it as a model for the present co-cathedral. However, Cassar still took decisions over the final design and made modifications, and thus became the sole architect of the co-cathedral.[10] Once St. John's was completed in 1577, it became the new conventual church of the Order instead of St. Lawrence's Church in the Order's former headquarters Birgu.[7] Construction of the oratory and sacristy began in 1598, during the magistracy of Martin Garzez, and they were completed by Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt in 1604
For the first century of its existence, the church's interior was modestly decorated. However, in the 1660s, Grand Master Raphael Cotoner ordered the redecoration of the interior so as to rival the churches of Rome. Calabrian artist Mattia Preti was in charge of the embellishment, and effectively completely transformed the interior in the Baroque style. The annexes on the side of the cathedral were added later and feature the coat of arms of Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena who reigned from 1722 to 1736
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