Porte des Bombes



Porte des Bombes (Bieb il-Bombi), originally called Porta dei Cannoni, is an ornamental arched gate in Floriana, Malta. It is located within the faussebraye of the Floriana Lines, which formed the outer defensive walls of Valletta. The lines are situated between Pietà Creek and Marsa to the west and southeast, and the suburb of Floriana to the east. It was constructed in Baroque style and was finished in 1721, a year after the death of Fra Ramon Perellos y Roccaful, 64th Grand Master of the Order of Saint John. Perellos' coat of arms appears above the gate. A marble plaque was affixed reading: "DVM THRACES VBIQUE PVGNO IN SEDE SIC TVTA CONSTO MDCCXXI"

Two other coat of arms were also sculpted on either side of the plaque, the one on the left being the Order's arms and the one on the right being Perellos' personal arms. Perellos' arms also appear four other times on the gate. Various Maltese crosses are also sculpted on the archway.

Porte des Bombes saw military action after the Order departed from Malta in 1798, during the insurrection. French forces controlled the area from Porte des Bombes and the Floriana Lines to the Grand Harbour, while the Maltese controlled the rest of the islands with the help of the British.

In 1868, the British government dramatically altered the original design of the gate by adding a second archway to accommodate increasingly heavy traffic in the Grand Harbour area. A marble plaque was affixed to the newer arch, with the following inscription: "AD MAJOREM POPVLI COMMODITATEM MDCCCLXVIII"

On the new side of the gate, the British coat of arms were sculpted instead of the Order's. The three large sculptures on top of the arch were also relocated.

The short-lived Malta Railway ran through a tunnel located near Porte des Bombes from 1883 until its closure in 1931. The bridge where over which it passed still exists. Part of the archway was removed in the early twentieth century to enlarge the opening, making way for a tram which ran from 1905 to 1929. Later the entire archway was cut off from the bastions to make room for a road to cope with the increasing volume of traffic. Porte des Bombes was also damaged by aerial bombing during World War II.

Between September 2002 and March 2003 the archway was restored to a total cost of Lm55,000. A new lighting system was also installed. In 2005 the archway was vandalized when oil was daubed on the gate but it was cleaned within a couple of days. On 24 October 2012, there was some damage when an Arriva bus skidded into it and two other buses later crashed into the first bus and 22 passengers were injured. However the damaged part of the gate was rebuilt a few days later.