Museum sights in Valletta
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A
Armoury
From the public entry to the Grand Master's Palace on Triq il-Merkanti it's possible to visit the Armoury (and the State Apartments). Heritage Malta conducts guided tours (included in the cost of admission) of the Armoury daily; tours and times are not set in stone, so it may be worth making advance enquiries.
The Armoury is now housed in what was once the Grand Master's stables. The armour and weapons belonging to the Knights were once stored at the Palace Armoury (now the Great Hall used by the parliament), and when a Knight died they became the property of the Order. The current collection of over 5000 suits of 16th- to 18th-century armour is all that remains of an ori…
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B
Cathedral Museum
The first bay in the south aisle of St John’s gives access to the Cathedral Museum. The first room is the Oratory, built in 1603 as a place of worship and for the instruction of novices. It is dominated by the altarpiece, The Beheading of St John the Baptist (c 1608) by Caravaggio, one of the artist’s most famous and accomplished paintings. The executioner – reaching for a knife to finish off the job that his sword began – and Salome with her platter are depicted with chilling realism (note that the artist signed his name in the blood seeping from St John’s severed neck). On the east wall hangs St Jerome, another of Caravaggio’s masterpieces.
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C
National War Museum
Commemorating the country’s ordeal during WWII, Malta’s National War Museum is housed in the northwest corner of Fort St Elmo. The collection of relics, photographs and equipment includes the Gloster Gladiator biplane called Faith (minus wings), the jeep Husky used by General Eisenhower, and the wreckage of a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter aircraft recovered from the seabed. The pictures of bomb damage in Valletta give some idea of the amount of rebuilding that was needed after the war. Pride of place goes to the replica George Cross medal that was awarded to the entire population of Malta in 1942.
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D
Knights Hospitallers exhibition
At the Sacra Infermeria, a 16th-century hospital of the Order of St John, surgeons performed advanced operations as well as the more routine amputations and treatment of war wounds. A pretty lacklustre Knights Hospitallers exhibition, with an entrance across the street from the Malta Experience, records the achievements of these medieval medics.
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E
Toy Museum
Opposite Casa Rocca Piccola is the small Toy Museum, housing an impressive private collection of model planes and boats from the 1950s, as well as Matchbox cars, farmyard animals, train sets and dolls. The collection is generally in glass display cabinets, so this place is better suited to nostalgic adults than hyperactive ankle-biters.
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F
National Museum of Fine Arts
Occupying Admiralty House, Malta’s National Museum of Fine Arts is a baroque palazzo that was used as the official residence of the admiral commander- in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet from the 1820s until 1961. Lord Louis Mountbatten also had his headquarters here in the early 1950s.
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G
National Museum of Archaeology
Housed in the Auberge de Provence, the National Museum of Archaeology is well worth a visit, despite the fact that it is still undergoing renovation and expansion (long past its scheduled completion date). At the time of research, only the galleries on the ground floor (detailing the early Neolithic and Temple periods, c 5200 to 2500 BC) were open, but new displays are planned for the upstairs galleries (the lavish main hall currently houses temporary exhibitions), and these will explore the Bronze Age, Phoenician and Roman culture and the medieval period up to the modern period (c 2500 BC to AD 1800s).
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