Fra' Jean Parisot de la Valette (4 February 1495-21 August 1568) was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568.
As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.
The foundation stone of Valletta was laid by Grandmaster La Valette in 1566. He did not live to see Valletta completed, as he died in 1568 and was succeeded by Grandmaster Pierre de Monte.
He was born into the noble La Valette family in Quercy, South-western France, which had been an important family in France for many generations, various members having participated in the Crusades. Jean Parisot's grandfather, Bernard de La Valette, was a Knight and King's Orderly, and his father Guillot was a Chevalier de France. Jean Parisot was a distant cousin, through their mutual ancestor Almaric, Seigneur de Parisot of Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, first Duke of Épernon.
Although his birth year is usually given as 1494, both chroniclers of the Great Siege of Malta, Francisco Balbi di Correggio and Hipolito Sans, say he was 67 at the time, thereby implying that he was born in 1498. In his history of the Order of St. John, the 18th-century historian Abbe Vertot, whose history is largely based on -but often contradictd - the earlier one of Giacomo Bosio, indicates that La Valette was indeed the same age as both Suleiman I and Kızılahmedli Mustafa Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman land forces, which would mean that he was actually 70 years old at the time of the siege.
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La Valette joined the Order when he was 20 years old in around 1514, and he never returned to France or his family estates from that day on. Jean de La Valette was present during the Great Siege of Rhodes in 1522, and accompanied Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, after the Order's expulsion from Rhodes by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
After the loss of Rhodes, the Order was granted the Maltese Islands and Tripoli by Emperor Charles V. In 1538 he was imprisoned in the Gozo prison for four months after attacking a man.
In 1541 La Valette was involved in a naval battle against Abd-ur-Rahman Kust Aly, in which he was wounded and his galley, the San Giovanni, was captured. La Valette was taken as a galley slave for a year by Barbary pirates under the command of Turgut Reis but was later freed during an exchange of prisoners. In 1546 La Valette became Governor of Tripoli, where he tried to restore order within the vulnerable city.
In 1554, he was elected Captain General of the Order's galleys. This was a great honour to the Langue of Provence, as throughout most of the Order's history, the position of Grand Admiral was usually held by a Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Langue. In that capacity, he won a name that stood conspicuous in that age of great sea captains, and was held in the same regard as the Chevalier Mathurin Romegas -one of the greatest Christian maritime commanders of the age. In fact both sides had extremely talented sailors.
If La Valette, Romegas and Juan de Austria could be considered the best commanders that the Christian forces could bring to the sea, the forces of Islam were able to call on the equally outstanding maritime and leadership skills of admirals such as Barbarossa and Dragut. La Valette was described by Abbe de Branthome as being a very handsome man, speaking several languages fluently including Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Turkish.
In 1557, upon the death of Grand Master Claude de la Sengle, the Knights, mindful of the attack that was sure to come, elected La Valette to be Grand Master.
In 1560, he formed an alliance with the Habsburg Empire to reconquer Tripoli, but the expedition resulted in a Christian defeat at the Battle of Djerba. Despite this the Order's galleys were able to rescue several other Christian vessels, and later on in his reign, La Valette greatly strengthened the Order's navy.
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He organized the defence of Malta, fought during the siege, and successfully repulsed the Turks at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. During the siege the vastly outnumbered Christians held out for over 3 months against an Ottoman force containing no less than 30,000 soldiers, including the Janissaries, as well as the Sultan's fleet of some 193 ships. The battle saw the fall of Fort St. Elmo after about a month of fierce fighting, but the Order managed to hold out in Birgu and Senglea until a relief force arrived. Ottoman specialist engineers had originally assessed the fortification of Saint Elmo, from local informants and conducting reconnoitring missions, saying it would fall in three days.
Knight Commander Le Sande, who had sailed from Sicily with reinforcements, ordered a general charge from the Maltese hills toward the end of the siege. They attacked the Ottoman forces until the Ottoman forces retreated to the sea, and at that point the sea had completely changed colour to red, from the sheer volume of blood lost. It was at that point the Ottoman forces boarded their ships, directed their course back to Constantinople. Whilst shaping course back to Constantinople they momentarily contemplated counterattacking. However, they had lost too many men, supplies, and the morale at that point to launch any substantial counterattack.
As a result of the Order's victory La Valette gained much prestige in Europe, but he declined the offer of a cardinal's hat in order to maintain independence from the papacy. This has been attributed to his sense of modesty and his humility as a warrior monk.
After the great siege, he commissioned the construction of the new city of Valletta in 1566, laying the first stone with his own hands. This took place on the slopes of Mount Sciberras, where the flower of the Turkish army had died whilst trying to storm Fort Saint Elmo, which the Turks thought would fall within three or four days, but which, due to the bravery of the defenders, held out for 30 days.
The city named after its founder -Humilissima Civitas Vallettae- became known as the most aristocratic and exclusive fortress in Europe -a city most often referred to as Superbissima- the Most Proud.
Valletta remains the Maltese capital to this day.
La Valette suffered a stroke while praying in a chapel and died soon after on 21 August 1568, exactly eleven years after he became Grandmaster.
La Valette never saw the completed city of Valletta. His tomb, in the form of a sarcophagus, can be found in the Crypt of the Conventual Church of the Order, now St. John's Co-Cathedral, situated within the walls of Valletta.
More information: Nobility
We shall never take you.
No, not even if you were as soft as a gourd,
Not even if you were only protected by an onion skin!
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