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San Blas Chapel
After the end of the Crusades, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the city state of Venice became the sea-power in the Mediterranean. Venice had two kinds of ships in her fleet. The most were the tall merchantmen which plighted the eastern Mediterranean and the slim and low crack ships. Though driven by sail, they also carried about a hundred and fifty oarsmen. These men were freemen and well armed, so when need be they could defend the galleon.
Thousands of Maltese were to fall victims of the marauding corsairs when the Maltese islands were not soundly defended in the early part of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.