A re-enactment procession of the Knights of St John

Grand Master's Pageant

The Malta Tourism Authority in co-operation with the Ministry for Gozo and the Gozo Tourism Association held a grand pageant on Saturday, September 8 in Rabat, Gozo.

The pageant re-evokeed an undocumented visit of Grand Master Jean de Vallette to Gozo. Following the Siege of 1565 the Citadel's fortifications were inspected to ensure that the fort could withstand future incursions by Ottoman corsairs.

It is befitting that such a pageant was held on September 8, the day when the Maltese and Gozitans celebrate the lifting of the siege by the Turkish Armada.

Gozo had during the time of the Knights of St. John, always been more vulnerable than Malta to attacks by the Ottoman Turks. In 1551, when Dragut, on having failed to ransack any of the Maltese towns, decided to assault Gozo’s Citadel with a vengeance and carried off some 5000 people into slavery; practically the entire population of Gozo at the time. During the Great Siege of 1565 the Gozitan population was thankfully spared the same fate as the Ottoman Turks focused their onslaught on Malta’s harbour towns. 

Following the Great Siege the reverence towards the Holy Virgin as a Child – Maria Bambina – increased many fold as it was on her feast day September 8 that the Siege was lifted. Since then the feast is also referred to as il-Vitorja, that is Our Lady of Victory. This feast nowadays is celebrated in three Maltese parishes and a Gozitan one, that of Xaghra.