Palace of the Inquisitor

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The Inquisitor's Palace in Birgu (Vittoriosa)

The Palace of the Inquisitors ( Maltese Palazz tal-Inkwizitur , English Inquisitor’s Palace ) in Birgu , the former capital of Malta under the Order of Malta , was the official and residence of the Grand Inquisitors of Malta from 1574 to 1798 . It is located at Triq il-Mina l-Kbira and is a Grade 1 monument under monument protection . The palace is one of the few buildings of this type that survived the upheavals of the long 19th century .

history

The building was constructed in the 1530s as the seat of the Magna Curia Castellania , the Court of Justice of Malta, and was used as a courthouse by them until they moved to Valletta in 1572.

The first Grand Inquisitor of Malta, Petrus Dusina , moved into the extensively renovated building in 1574, which the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Jean de la Cassière , had given him. All subsequent Grand Inquisitors built the property into a palace in the style of a Roman palazzo until the middle of the 18th century.

The oldest surviving part is the courtyard surrounded by a Gothic cloister to the left of the entrance to the building. The facade attributed to Francesco Buonamici was added in 1660. After the earthquake of 1693, the palace was further enlarged around 1700.

The last Grand Inquisitor Giulio Carpegna left Malta in 1798 a few weeks before the Maltese islands were occupied by Napoleonic troops. After that, the building was used, among other things, as a military hospital, as an officers' mess during the British period and, after the Second World War, as temporary accommodation for the Dominican brothers after their convent and the religious order had been destroyed in the war.

The Inquisitor's Palace has served as an ethnological museum since 1966. It is maintained and operated as a museum by Heritage Malta .

description

Exterior

The almost labyrinthine floor plan of the building with its numerous staircases and inner courtyards testifies to the various additions and conversions since the building was constructed as a court of law.

The symmetrical facade is divided into five sections by pilasters. On the ground floor, the pilasters and window frames are rusticated , while on the first floor the smooth facade is only interrupted by the slightly grooved pilasters. The windows of the piano nobile are larger than those on the ground floor and crowned by a straight cornice . At the level of the window sills, the horizontal structure is emphasized by a narrow surrounding cornice. The main entrance and the central axis of the building are highlighted on the upper floor by a balcony with a stone balustrade.

Interior

The main staircase, built in 1733, is opposite the main entrance in the middle of the building front. Inside the building are a number of reconstructed rooms, including the palace kitchen, the Grand Inquisitor's private quarters, the Inquisition Tribunal's hearing room, a prison, and even a torture chamber .

See also

literature

  • Leonard Mahoney: 5000 years of Architecture in Malta . Valletta Publ., Valletta 1996, ISBN 99909-58-15-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Magna Curia Castellania . In: Malta Study Center (ed.): Melitensia . Spring, 2012, p. 3 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c The Inquisitor's Palace. Heritage Malta , 2019, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b c Adriana Bishop: An inside look: the Inquisitor's Palace, Birgu. www.guidememalta.com, March 25, 2018, accessed December 30, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Palazz tal-Inkwizitur / Inquisitor's Palace. (PDF; 385 kB) In: National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands. Sovrintendenza tal-Patrimonju Kulturale, December 28, 2012, accessed December 30, 2019 .

Coordinates: 35 ° 53 ′ 14 ″  N , 14 ° 31 ′ 22 ″  E