
Inquisitor's Palace
Former tribunal, prison and residence of the Roman Inquisition, with graffiti-scarred cells.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Inquisitor's Palace in Birgu, across the harbour from Valletta, follows the unnamed prison guard of the Roman Inquisition, the man who held the keys between fifteen seventy-four and seventeen ninety-eight. It moves through a building that was court, office, prison and home at once, from the ground-floor kitchen to the tribunal above. You'll meet the people kept in its cells, from bigamists to enslaved Muslims accused of witchcraft. Best heard standing inside the old prison cells.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Reliving the Sacra Infermeria
Sixteenth-century hospital of the Knights of St John, with one of Europe's longest wards.
Ministry for Health
Baroque former courthouse of the Knights, now a health ministry with a historic fever laboratory.
Mysterium Fidei Museum St Catherine's Monastery and Secret Garden
Underground quarry rooms, crypt and garden beneath a cloistered nuns' monastery, open since 2023.
University of Malta (Valletta Campus)
Former Jesuit college of 1592 around a courtyard, still a university campus with a Greek-inscribed gate.
Malta at War Museum
Wartime barracks museum above a vast rock-cut air raid shelter with a birth room and surgery.