Despuig Bastion is the last of
the artillery bulwarks which was built by the Knights in Mdina. It is dated to
around 1739-48 and appears to have been designed by the Order’s resident
military engineer Franesco Marandon. The bastion is a hollow and asymmetrical
bulwark with two short flanks. It was built at the foot of the old medieval
ramparts beneath the cathedral and was intended to provide flanking defences
along the city’s north-eastern section of the enceinte. The bastion survived in
a good state of preservation but had suffered considerable damage since it was
built on clayish ground. The bastion had a large fissure due to a subsidence of
the underlying terrain and was in dire need of repair and restoration.
The ERDF 039 project (MDN 04)
sought to arrest the rotation and movement of the massive walls through various
interventions involving the insertion of pylons and anchors as well as
undertake the restoration of the masonry fabric of the ramparts