This Friday, May 20, will be the 70th anniversary of when St Augustine’s monastery in Old Bakery Street, Valletta was hit by enemy action during World War II. The bomb came down on the angle between St Mark and Old Mint streets and this part was a great loss to the friars as it housed a magnificent refectory, built on the spot where the first Augustinian church was built by Ġirolamo Cassar. After the war it was rebuilt but not as it used to stand.
The other important damaged building was the friars’ library. It contained precious books as well as incunabula. There were also the archives of the Province, from which one of the manuscripts was later found on sale at the Monti. It was bought by the late Joseph Schembri, a Malta University lecturer who restored it and returned to the friars. During that air-raid, Fra Michael Calleja from Kerċem fell from the second piano nobile and found himself in the friars’ garden. He was unhurt. Though a part of the monastery was out of use, the friars did not abandon their monastery and nor their nearby faithful.