Fort San Lucjan

The MARC is housed within Fort San Lucjan, built by order of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt between 1610 and 1611, possibly on the design of Victor Cassar or Girgor Xerri. Fort San Lucjan was originally armed with six strong bronze cannons; it was surrounded by a dry ditch and had a drawbridge. Grand Master Wignacourt was baptised in a church dedicated to San Lucjan in France, and therefore dedicated the fort to his patron saint. In fact, the fort also had a small chapel dedicated to San Lucjan which included the painting of the saint, now believed to be at the Tarxien Parish Church in Tarxien, Malta.
The fort was enlarged and strengthened by Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan and named Fort Rohan in 1796. During the invasion of Malta by the French in 1798, Fort San Lucjan was one of the few forts to offer resistance to the forces of Napoleon when it continued to fire on the French troops until the ammunition had run out. In 1876 under the governorship of Van Stranbenzee, the fort was modernised and fitted with strong iron coastal muzzle-loading guns on the newly constructed outer defenses.
Between the late forties and early sixties, Fort San Lucjan was used by the Royal Air Force as a bomb depot. It also served as a military prison in certain periods. The wooden drawbridge was replaced by a fixed bridge and rail tracks were fitted across it and leading into the fort, enabling bombs to be carried inside the fort with the least possible inconvenience. In 1964 the fort was handed over to the Maltese government and soon after began to be administered by the University, first under the auspices of the Architecture Department and later as a Marine Biology Station, until 1988 when it was allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in order to accommodate the newly set up National Aquaculture Centre.