Inquisitor's Palace
Seat of the Maltese Inquisition from 1574 to 1798, now the National Museum of Ethnography.
The palace was put up in the 1530s, shortly after the Order of St John arrived in Malta, to house the civil law courts of Birgu. When the Roman Inquisition established a tribunal on the island in 1574 the building became the Inquisitor's residence and court, and it served that purpose until the French expelled the Order in 1798. Successive inquisitors, several of whom later became pope, altered and enlarged it, leaving a mixture of medieval, Mannerist and Baroque work around a central courtyard.
Heritage Malta runs the palace as the National Museum of Ethnography. Visitors move through the tribunal room, the prison cells with graffiti scratched by detainees, the domestic kitchen and the piano nobile with its audience chambers and chapel. Displays set out how the Inquisition worked in Malta, the everyday life of the household, and wider themes of Maltese religious and social custom. It is regarded as the only inquisitor's palace in Europe that is regularly open to the public.
Highlights
- Prison cells carrying graffiti left by detainees
- Tribunal room where the Inquisition heard cases
- Piano nobile with chapel and audience chambers
- Home of Malta's National Museum of Ethnography
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