Family of Grand Master say name is wrong

Descendants of the Grand Master who commissioned the building of Valletta are insisting that his name is consistently being misspelt. On her third trip to Malta, Désireé von la Valette Saint Georges insisted the family of Jean Parisot has always carried the name as “de la Valette”, and not “de Valette”. The Grand Master himself was brought up in La Valette du Var, a city in southern France, she added. A French nobleman and Grand Master of the Order of Malta from 1557 to 1568, the Knight Hospitaller fought with distinction against the Turks in Rhodes and as Grand Master commanded the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, emerging victorious. He went on to commission the construction of the new city of Valletta in 1566, laying the first stone with his own hands. The controversy of the correct spelling of the 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta was brought up again last week, during the unveiling of a 2.5-metre statue of the Knight Hospitaller in Valletta. During a speech, former European Court of Human Rights judge and researcher Giovanni Bonello sought to settle the matter once and for all. He stressed the name was Jean De Valette and not “De...