St Paul's Cathedral, Mdina
Baroque cathedral rebuilt by Lorenzo Gafa after the 1693 earthquake, at the heart of walled Mdina.
The Metropolitan Cathedral of St Paul stands on the site that Maltese tradition identifies as the house of Publius, the Roman governor said to have received the shipwrecked apostle. A Norman church here was largely destroyed by the earthquake that struck Sicily and Malta in 1693. The Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafa rebuilt it between 1696 and 1705 in a restrained Baroque manner, giving it a dome over the crossing and a west front with twin bell towers facing the main square of the walled city.
The nave floor is inlaid with polychrome marble tombstones commemorating canons and prelates, and the apse keeps a fresco of the shipwreck of St Paul that survived the earthquake. The cathedral shares the seat of the Archbishop of Malta with St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta and is still used for worship. Visitors enter on a combined ticket issued at the Cathedral Museum, a few steps away in Archbishop's Square, which holds the chapter's art and archive collections.
Highlights
- Rebuilt by Lorenzo Gafa between 1696 and 1705
- Dome and twin bell towers over Mdina's main square
- Nave floor inlaid with marble tombstones
- Combined ticket with the Cathedral Museum nearby
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