One World - Protecting the most significant buildings, monuments and features of Valletta (90)

According to a document from the Order's archives dated 18th May, 1581, the Palace was designed by Gerolamo Cassar with later additions and extensions by other architects. The Grandmaster's Palace is a two-storey building having five entrances, occupying the area of an entire insula in the centre of the city. The main façade on Palace Square features the two entrance portals that are embellished with robust gateways that incorporate banded doric columns. Long wooden balconies at the corners are supported on ornate large corbels, which warp around the rusticated quoins of the Palace. A balustraded parapet wall crowns the building.

The Palace includes two large courtyards - the larger Neptune court now features a fine bronze statue of the sea-god. The Neptune fountain, was originally erected in 1615 by Grand Master Wignacourt to commemorate the completion of the aqueduct, and consisted of a bronze statue on a pedestal in the centre of an elaborate basin. It was originally located at the old fishmarket at Lascaris wharf but was later relocated to the Palace's courtyard. The second courtyard is named after Prince Alfred which is characterised by the elaborate clock and chimes rung by four bronze Moors installed by Grandmaster Pinto.

The building contains the Palace Armoury and State Rooms, the Maltese Parliament, and the President's office. Its interiors are richly decorated with marble intarsia floors, frescoes, tapestries, antique Maltese and foreign furniture and other objets d'art.

A horse-drinking fountain in the baroque style abuts the wall facing the main entrance, under the arches surrounding the Neptune courtyard and just behind the Palace stables. Over the basin the fountain has the Grand Master Perollo's coat of arms which is surrounded by an elaborate relief of an upturned sea-shell and a festoon of thick foliage resting on a cannon and a military drum. The coat of arms is supported by Neptune on the left and by a siren on the right.

The Moors' clock was a gift from the Grand Master in 1745 and has four dials showing the time, the day, the month and the phases of the moon. The hours are struck by bronze effigies of Moorish slaves wielding sledge-hammers. It is reputed that the clock is the work of Maltese clockmaker Gaetano Vella and built in 1745.

Mepa scheduled the Grandmaster's Palace including fountains, statues and Moors' Clock as Grade 1 national monuments as per Government Notice number 276/08 in the Government Gazette dated March 28, 2008.