University of Malta Valletta Campus

Malta's university was born in Valletta, and its oldest building is still in use in the middle of the city. The Valletta Campus, often called the Old University Building, began life as a Jesuit college at the end of the sixteenth century and now serves the University of Malta as a setting for international conferences, seminars, short courses and summer schools. The main teaching campus is at Msida, with further sites in Gozo and Marsaxlokk, but Valletta is where visiting academics, delegates and summer students often find themselves.

For UK readers, the campus matters in two ways: as a venue for a conference or short course in a World Heritage city, and as a piece of the capital's history you can see from the street. On VisitMalta.co.uk it appears in our directory of international schools and education in Malta.

Four centuries of history

Grand Master Martino Garzes laid the first stone of the Jesuit college in 1595, and building moved fast enough for classes to leave their temporary home in an old Valletta house within two years. The Jesuit church next door, which takes up nearly half the site, was begun in 1592 and finished in 1609. The layout follows the Renaissance pattern of rooms around a central courtyard, and the once plain front was given a Baroque facade by the architect Francesco Buonamici around 1647.

The building has survived a gunpowder explosion nearby in 1634 and damage from the Sicilian earthquake of 1693; a sundial and a courtyard clock with sober Latin inscriptions date from that anxious period. After the Jesuits were expelled in 1768, the Order of St John took over and founded a university on the premises in 1769. Studies were paused under Grand Master Ximenes, resumed under Grand Master de Rohan in 1779, and gave way to the French École Centrale between 1798 and 1800. Our history of the Knights of Malta gives the wider background.

Under British rule the university reopened with Mgr Francesco Saverio Caruana as its first rector, and in 1824 a Doric gateway topped by the royal coat of arms was added on St Paul Street, carrying a Greek motto about learning leading to distinction. Masters and doctoral graduates still walk through it in procession on their way to ceremonies in the Jesuit church. Over the years the building has also housed a library, a boys' lyceum, a wartime air raid precautions centre, an observatory with a seismograph, and the head office of Heritage Malta.

Inside the Old University Building

Visitors attending an event notice the decorated corridor ceilings, which lend themselves to themed Renaissance or medieval dinners, and the broad hardstone staircase worn smooth by centuries of priests, students and professors. Portraits of notable figures donated by Sir Joseph Nicholas Zammit in the nineteenth century line the first floor corridors, and some of today's offices were once the cells of Jesuit priests. The ground floor rooms, let as the Commercial Rooms in the early British period, were rebuilt in 1810 and refurbished again in 2013.

The building is now home to the university's Conferences and Events Unit, the Research, Innovation and Development Trust, the Ġibsoteka collection and the Centre for the Study and Practice of Conflict Resolution, and part of it holds the offices of the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law.

Conferences, rooms and the theatre

Meeting rooms are spread over three levels, and each can be supplied with a flip chart and markers, with signs placed in the corridors to guide delegates. A bar on the first floor is used for coffee breaks, standing receptions and buffet lunches, so organisers may want to pair a booking with an events planning company such as 242.group or a caterer like Above Catering.

The Valletta Campus Theatre is a renovated black box space that reopened in March 2017. It seats up to 158 on retractable tiers and has a projection system with a media server, a professional sound system, stage lighting, a cyclorama, dance flooring and platforms, plus a dressing room, kitchenette and studio. Live streaming, video conferencing, discussion systems and multitrack recording can be arranged, and trained technicians support each booking. It is popular for the performing arts, including productions by the university's School of Performing Arts and a staging of CATS the Musical by Hoi Polloi.

Finding the campus and making an enquiry

The campus takes up a whole block between St Paul Street, St Christopher Street, Merchants Street and Archbishop Street, a short walk from St John's Co-Cathedral and the Upper Barrakka Gardens. Our Valletta guide covers the rest of the city, and there is a choice of hotels in Valletta within a few minutes' walk for conference delegates and summer school students. Families considering a longer stay can read our UK guide to relocating to Malta.

Whether you want details of a summer school, a quote for a conference or a date for the theatre, use the VisitMalta.co.uk enquiry form on this page and we will pass your message to the University of Malta.