1 Carlino - Jean de Vallette

Jean de Vallette was Grand Master when the Ottoman fleet of Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Malta in May 1565 — roughly 40,000 troops against a garrison of perhaps 6,000. The Knights held. The following year, flush with prestige and fresh donations from Catholic Europe, de Vallette began construction of the new fortified city that still bears his name and struck new coinage to assert the Order's continued authority over the island.

Restelli 119 is among the copper issues of this immediate post-siege period, produced in the window between the Ottoman withdrawal and de Vallette's death in 1568.