Wignacourt towers

In 1418, the Maltese people made a petition to build a tower guarding the Gozo Channel, but nothing materialised.

Despite this, there was a shortage of men and coastal defence was not very effective, with the islands remaining open to attacks by Moors or Barbary corsairs.

In 1599, Grand Master Martin Garzez invited the military engineer Giovanni Rinaldini to examine the defences and suggest improvements.

Garzez died in 1601 before any new defences were built, but he left a sum of 12,000 scudi in his will for building a new coastal watchtower.

[2] Garzez's successor, Alof de Wignacourt, set out to build a series of towers around the coastline.

[3] Saint Lucian Tower first saw action in the raid of Żejtun of 1614, when it prevented an Ottoman force from landing in Marsaxlokk.

In around 1715, as part of a programme to improve Malta's coastal defences, artillery batteries were built around three of the towers.

Saint Lucian Tower was strengthened and renamed Fort Rohan in the 1790s, and saw use during the French capture of Malta and subsequent Maltese rebellion.

They were all decommissioned during the course of the 19th century, and were later used for a number of purposes, including as police stations, post offices, isolation hospitals and stables.

One of the earliest known bastioned towers is the Torre de San Giovanni in the Ebro Delta, which was built in 1576 and today lies in ruins.

Other bastioned towers were built in Sicily, Majorca and Cuba, such as Torreón de la Chorrera.