The Bishop's Palace () is a palatial building in

Birgu Birgu ( , ), also known by its title Città Vittoriosa ('Victorious City'), is an old Fortifications of Birgu, fortified city on the south side of the Grand Harbour in the Port Region, Malta, Port Region of Malta. The city occupies a promontory ...

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

which was a residence of the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

Bishops of Malta A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role ...

. It was constructed in the 16th century.

History

The building which later became known as the Bishop's Palace was originally built in around the 16th century. It belonged to the Abela family (ancestors of

Giovanni Francesco Abela Giovanni Francesco Abela (1582–1655) was a Maltese noble who in the early 17th century wrote an important work on Malta, ''Della Descrittione di Malta isola nel Mare Siciliano: con le sue antichità, ed altre notizie'', "description of Malta ...

) until it was purchased by Bishop Domenico Cubelles in 1542. Apart from being a residence for the Bishop, the building also housed the Curia and an ecclesiastical tribunal. A prison where detainees awaiting trial or serving sentences handed out by the Bishop's court was also located in an adjacent annex. After

Valletta Valletta ( ; , ) is the capital city of Malta and one of its 68 Local councils of Malta, council areas. Located between the Grand Harbour to the east and Marsamxett Harbour to the west, its population as of 2021 was 5,157. As Malta’s capital ...

replaced Birgu as Malta's capital city in the 1570s, the Curia initially remained in the Birgu palace as Malta's

Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there u ...

rulers A ruler, sometimes called a rule, scale, line gauge, or metre/meter stick, is an instrument used to make length measurements, whereby a length is read from a series of markings called "rules" along an edge of the device. Usually, the inst ...

were against moving the Bishop's seat to the new city. The palace was modified by

Baldassare Cagliares Baldassare Cagliares ( 1575 – 4 August 1633) was a Maltese people, Maltese Roman Catholic prelate who was the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta, Bishop of Malta from 1615 until his death. Biography Baldassare Cagliares was born in Valletta ...

who was Bishop from 1615 to 1633, but during his episcopate he also constructed a new

Bishop's Palace A bishop's palace is a form of ecclesiastical architecture constituting the official residence of a bishop.The term was not used in the British Isles until the Church of England was restructured following the Norman Conquest of 1066 AD. However, th ...

in Valletta and the Curia finally moved out of Birgu. Cagliares was therefore the last Bishop who resided within the Birgu palace. The building remained property of the Curia and it was sometimes used by later Bishops during pastoral visits. It was further enlarged later on in the 17th century during the episcopate of Bishop Miguel Juan Balaguer. At some points it was rented out as a tenement, and for some time it housed a children's school until falling into disuse by the early 21st century. The building is now listed on the

National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands The National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands (NICPMI) is a heritage register listing the cultural property of Malta. The inventory includes properties such as archaeological sites, fortifications, religious buildings, mon ...

Architecture

The building's façade has a distinctive 16th century style, and it is believed to retain its original configuration.

References

{{Birgu Buildings and structures completed in the 16th century Defunct prisons in Malta Defunct schools in Malta Episcopal palaces of the Catholic Church Limestone buildings in Malta National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands Palaces in Birgu

History

Architecture

See also

References