In its ongoing mission to make the sites and museums entrusted to it more accessible to the general public, Heritage Malta will once again be organizing an Open Day and this time the site which will open its doors to the public for free is the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa.
The Inquisitor’s Palace, is one of the very few surviving examples of a palace that would have been found all over Europe and South America in the early modern period. Mgr Pietro Dusina arrived in Malta in 1574 as the first general inquisitor and apostolic delegate of the Maltese Islands. The Grand Master offered him the unused palace as an official residence. Almost all successive inquisitors sought to transform the palace into a decent mansion. They all shared the same cultural values of clerical baroque Roman society, and by the mid-18th century they had managed successfully to transform the building into a typical Roman palace. The palace is the flagship of the Ethnography section of Heritage Malta.
During the Open Day, the public will be able to visit the different parts of the Palace including the tribunal where the accused were sentenced, the torture chamber, the piano nobile and the prison cells featuring 
graffiti carved by prisoners. Coupled with its extremely rich history, the Inquisitor’s Palace is also an architectural jewel which fuses different styles of architecture marking the changes made to the building during the occupation by the different Inquisitors. It is one of the very few surviving palaces of its kind and the only one accessible to the public world wide.
Those visiting the Inquisitor’s Palace for free on the 7th of June will also have the opportunity of purchasing a number of Heritage Malta publications at a reduced price as well as benefit from a 10% discount on new memberships. During the Open Day, Heritage Malta will also be opening the Malta Maritime Museum at a reduced rate of €3 for adults and €2.50 for concessions.
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Museums & Sites | 22nd May 2013