Malta – Cottonera Gate (Notre Dame Gate) 1974 Silver 4 Liri 38.2mm (19.91 grams) 0.987 Silver (0.6347 oz ASW) Reference: KM# 25 MALTA, Dominion of Malta’s Coat-of-Arms. 1974 LM4, Building flanked by date.
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The Notre Dame Gate, also known as the Notre Dame de la Grace Gate (Italian: Porta della Maria Vergine delle Grazie), the Cottonera Gate, the Żabbar Gate (Maltese: Il-Mina ta’ Ħaż-Żabbar) or Bieb is-Sultan (Maltese for “King’s Gate”), is the main gate of the Cottonera Lines, located in Birgu, Malta. The gate was built in 1675 in the Baroque style, and it is currently used as the headquarters of the heritage organization Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna.
Construction of the Cottonera Lines began in August 1670, when there were fears of an Ottoman attack after the fall of Candia. The Notre Dame Gate was built in 1675 as the lines’ main gate, and its design is attributed to Romano Carapecchia or Mederico Blondel. The gate is located within the Notre Dame Curtain, between Notre Dame and St. James Bastions, facing the town of Żabbar. It is situated at the highest point of the Cottonera area, and its roof was used to relay signals between Valletta and the coastal defences on the eastern part of Malta. The gate was originally protected by a drop ditch and a tenaille.
The gate remained in use throughout the years of Hospitaller, French and British rule. The gate gradually served as an adjunct to the Cottonera Military Hospital (now St. Edward’s College) following its construction in 1870. Many wounded soldiers were accommodated within the gate during World War I.
The gate’s ditch was filled in and the drawbridge removed sometime after the 1930s, while the tenaille was demolished. The gate was damaged by aerial bombardment during World War II, when one of the adjacent barrack blocks received a direct hit.
In the early 21st century, the Notre Dame Gate was passed to the Malta Heritage Trust, Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna, who moved their main offices into the upper part of the gate in late 2005. The foundation has since carried out a number of restoration works to parts of the gate, which is now open to the public once every week.
The gate was included on the Antiquities List of 1925, together with the rest of the Cottonera Lines. It is now scheduled as a Grade 1 national monument, and it is also listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands.
The Notre Dame Gate is built in the Baroque style, and it has five levels, and it includes underground chambers, two barrack blocks, and a superstructure consisting of a gatehouse built on two levels, a veranda and a signalling top. The monumental façade is decorated with Corinthian pilasters, and it has a panel with a trophy of arms surrounding a bronze bust of Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner and a marble plaque with a Latin inscription.
The bust was cast by Pietro Sances of Messina in the 1670s, and it is regarded as one of the most important works of art in bronze in Malta. During the French occupation of Malta, the bust was taken by the French as spoils of war, but it was returned to Malta by the British. There were some failed attempts to steal the bust in the 1960s, and it was restored between 2004 and 2008.
Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta’ Malta), is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Italy, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of 316 km2 (122 sq mi), Malta is the world’s tenth smallest and fifth most densely-populated country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km.2 The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese officially recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language in the European Union.
Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Spanish, Knights of St. John, French, and British. Most of these foreign influences have left some sort of mark on the country’s ancient culture.
Malta became a British colony in 1815, serving as a way station for ships and the headquarters for the British Mediterranean Fleet. It played an important role in the Allied war effort during the Second World War, and was subsequently awarded the George Cross for its bravery in the face of an Axis siege, and the George Cross appears on Malta’s national flag. The British Parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and queen. The country became a republic in 1974. It has been a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations since independence, and joined the European Union in 2004; it became part of the eurozone monetary union in 2008.
Malta has a long Christian legacy and its Archdiocese is claimed to be an apostolic see because Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked on “Melita”, according to Acts of the Apostles, which is now widely taken to be Malta. While Catholicism is the official religion in Malta, Article 40 of the Constitution states that “all persons in Malta shall have full freedom of conscience and enjoy the free exercise of their respective mode of religious worship.”
Malta is a popular tourist destination with its warm climate, numerous recreational areas, and architectural and historical monuments, including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, Valletta, and seven megalithic temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.
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