Clemente Tabone

Clemente Tabone (, 1575 – 11 March 1665) was a Maltese landowner and militia member who is known for his reported courage in the Raid on Żejtun, the last major Ottoman attack on Malta, in 1614. He built a tower and a chapel on some of his lands on the outskirts of Żejtun. The tower no longer exists, but St. Clement's Chapel remains intact and is still in use.

Biography Tabone was born in Casal Pasqualino (today part of Żejtun) around 1575 to Pietro Tabone and Dorothea née Cumbo. He was the only son of a rich family, and had six sisters. On 18 March 1589, he seems to have received a clerical tonsure which brought him under the Church's jurisdiction, protecting him from the powers of the Order of St. John who at the time ruled Malta. Tabone did not continue to study to become a priest.

He acted as an attorney for his father during a property deal in 1596, and his father later gave him some pieces of land through two notarial deeds. He subsequently became a wealthy landowner, renting out some of his fields and buying others. His lands included a number of fields and buildings, including part of the archaeological site of Tas-Silġ and salt pans in Bengħisa. Tabone built the Ingraw Tower on one of his lands in 1603, and decades later, he used part of the land acquired in 1596 to construct St. Clement's Chapel. It is known as Casa Verdi.

Ingraw Tower A rural structure built from reused stonework of the Ingraw Tower, with the date 1603 and the coat-of-arms of the Tabone family.

The Ingraw Tower was built by Tabone in 1603 in Ħal Tmin or in the area of Misraħ Strejnu. It bore the following inscription, but it has been lost:

The tower was built for defensive purposes since the area was prone to attacks by the Barbary pirates. A number of other towers were built in the area, including Tal-Mozz Tower in the immediate vicinity and Mamo Tower some distance away.

The Ingraw Tower had been dismantled by 1927, and its stonework was used to build a nearby rural structure. A stone bearing the date "1603" and another bearing the coat of arms of the Tabone family can still be seen in the room's façade. but a definite link between the raid and the chapel has not yet been established.

The chapel remains intact and it is still in use.