The Citadel or Cittadella or Iċ-Ċittadella or Castello or Il-Kastell. - Victoria Malta - ECTV

The Cittadella (Maltese: Iċ-Ċittadella), also known as the Castello (Maltese: Il-Kastell),[a] is the citadel of Victoria on the island of Gozo, Malta. The area has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, and the site now occupied by the Cittadella is believed to have been the acropolis of the Punic-Roman city of Gaulos or Glauconis Civitas.
During the medieval period, the acropolis was converted into a castle which served as a refuge for Gozo's population. A suburb began to develop outside its walls by the 15th century, and this area now forms the historic core of Victoria. The castle's defences were obsolete by the 16th century, and in 1551 an Ottoman force invaded Gozo and sacked the Cittadella.
A major reconstruction of the southern walls of the Cittadella was undertaken between 1599 and 1622, transforming it into a gunpowder fortress. The northern walls were left intact, and today they still retain a largely medieval form. The new fortifications were criticized in later decades, and plans to demolish the entire citadel were made multiple times in the 17th and 18th centuries, but were never carried out.
The Cittadella briefly saw action during the French invasion and subsequent uprising in 1798; in both cases the fortress surrendered without much of a fight. It remained a military installation until it was decommissioned by the British on 1 April 1868.
The Cittadella contains churches and other historic buildings, including the Cathedral of the Assumption, which was built between 1697 and 1711 on the site of an earlier church. The citadel has been included on Malta's tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1998.
Although there is only limited evidence of Neolithic remains in the Cittadella or Victoria, it is likely that the area has been inhabited since the Stone Age, given its size and strategic position. Ceramics discovered inside the Cittadella suggest that the area was a settlement in prehistory. Archaeological remains such as pottery show that the site of the Cittadella was definitely inhabited during the Bronze Age, in the Tarxien Cemetery and Borġ in-Nadur phases of Maltese prehistory. Bronze Age silos were discovered outside the Cittadella in the 19th century, suggesting that during this period the settlement was larger than the present-day citadel.[1]
The Victoria area remained the main settlement on Gozo throughout the Phoenician and Roman periods, and it became a settlement known as Gaulos or Glauconis Civitas. The city consisted of an acropolis on the site of the Cittadella, and a fortified town in an area now occupied by part of Victoria. A temple dedicated to Juno is said to have stood on the site now occupied by the cathedral. A few inscriptions and architectural fragments from Gaulos have survived,[2][3] including a 2nd-century AD Latin inscription on a limestone block that was reused in the main gate of the Cittadella.[4]
Remains of walls which might have formed part of the Punic-Roman fortifications of Gaulos have been discovered. In 1969, traces of massive walls were discovered during building works in Main Gate Street (Maltese: Triq Putirjal), to the south of the Cittadella.[5] Further remains were discovered close to the Cittadella during an archaeological excavation in 2017.[6]
Medieval period
The medieval northern walls of the Cittadella
During the medieval period, the Roman town was abandoned, and the acropolis was transformed into a castle. The first reference to the castrum of Gozo dates back to 1241. It was sacked by the Genoese in 1274, and a report on its fortifications was ordered two years later. At this point, one-third of Gozo's population lived in or around the Cittadella, and the island's inhabitants were required to spend the night within the citadel. By the end of the 13th century, the Cittadella housed noblemen from Sicily and mainland Italy who represented the Count of Malta. The Cittadella was called terra by the mid-14th century, and an administrative council known as the Università was founded in 1350.[7] In a testament of 1299 it was called castri Gaudisii.[8]
Over time, the Cittadella became too small for the growing population, and by the 15th century the suburb of Rabat began to develop on the site of the Roman town.[b] This settlement was surrounded by a wall with three gates known as Putirjal, Bieb il-Għajn and Bieb il-Għarb. At this point Malta and Gozo were ruled by the Crown of Aragon, and the Cittadella's fortifications were strengthened.[11] The oldest surviving parts of the walls date back from this period.
The plan on the right shows an early proposal to modernize the Cittadella, overlaid on a plan of the medieval fortifications. The plan on the left shows a similar proposal to modernize Mdina.
Emperor Charles V handed over Malta and Gozo to the Order of St. John in 1530. The Order was in a state of perpetual war against the Ottoman Empire, which had expelled it from its previous base at Rhodes in 1522.

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Just subscribed to your yt (the algorithm sometime pushes good things) and I'm wow, too. How on earth you, sir, uploaded some of the places that I love?? (when saw the promo of this place, cried like the rain you filmed in Meteora - catharsis). Have you been to the Church of Our Lady of Ta Pinu? A couple of wows more.😇