Valetta mixes your feelings. On the one hand, you are surprised by her calmness, on the other you love this difference. The same is with the Domus Zamittelo hotel. One of the most beautiful places in the heart of the city.
The hotel is easily discernible by its large arched doorway and a fine extensive balcony terrace on the 3rd level, both original and magnificent examples of the fine workmanship of that era.
A ring of the bell and a doorway opens up allowing the visitor into a spacious hallway with four Tuscan columns posted on the corners which carry a wonderfully shaped coved ceiling. Once inside, there is a serene calmness. The fine architectural surroundings and fine pieces of furniture seem like a treasure trove and moving on past an elegant reception desk and into the inner courtyard, there are comfortable armchairs and coffee tables.
385 years
This elegant 17th Century home had originally been part of the earlier estate of the Auberge D’Italie, one of the langues of the Order of St John. Recent research dates the palazzo back to 1633 when it was used by various knights of Italian descent. and was then known as Casa Pensa.
In 1805, after the departure from Malta of the Knights of St John, the British Governor granted ownership of the palazzo to Sir Giuseppe Nicola Zamitt, for services to the Crown. In recent years, the present Count of Mont’Alto, a descendant of Sir Giuseppe Nicola Zamitt after whom the palazzo is now named, embarked on a project to enlarge it and restore the entire property to its former glory.
,,Valletta equals in its noble architecture, if it doesn’t excel, any capital in Europe”
was a quotation made in 1830 by no less a person than Benjamin Disraeli, prior to him becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain. This fortified walled city built on a peninsula surrounded on two sides by magnificent harbours and on the third by the open Mediterranean Sea has served as a fortress throughout the centuries.
Today it is the central hub of government, the financial sector and the legal profession, the three engines that have thrust Malta into a successful economic cycle and turned it into a valued member of the EU.
