page_title: Inquisitor's Palace
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Inquisitor's Palace / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Main staircase of the Inquisitor's palace in Vittoriosa (Birgu), Malta. Français&#160;: Escalier principal du Palais de l'inquisiteur à Vittoriosa (Birgu), Malte.
context_page_description: The Inquisitor's Palace, also known as the Sacred Palace, is a palace in Birgu, Malta. It was the seat of the Maltese Inquisition from 1574 to 1798, under the name Palazzo del Sant'Officio. The building was originally constructed as a courthouse known as the Castellania in the early 16th century, but little remains of the original building due to major alterations and renovations carried out in the subsequent centuries.
  After the inquisition was abolished during the French occupation of Malta in 1798, the palace was used for a number of purposes, including as a military hospital, a mess hall and a convent. It has been a museum since 1966, being known as the National Museum of Ethnography since 1992. The building is one of the few surviving palaces of its kind in the world, and the only one which is open to the public.
context_section_description: The Inquisitor's Palace is built in a number of architectural styles, but overall it resembles a Roman palazzo. It has a symmetrical façade which is divided by piers into five bays. The piers on the ground floor are rusticated, while those on the first floor are smooth-faced. The central bay contains the main doorway on the ground floor, above which is an open balcony supported on corbels. Two windows flank either side of the central bay, and they have rusticated surrounds on the ground floor and mouldings on the first floor. A string course runs along the first floor window sill level. The façade also has a socle to make up for the steep slope of the street.
  Since the building was constructed over the course of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, with further alterations and restorations in the 19th and 20th centuries, its interior has a labyrinthine plan. One of the courtyards has a Gothic groin vault cloister, and this is the only part of the building that remains from the Castellania.
caption: The palace's interior near the main staircase
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