This weekend, Heritage Malta is offering the public visiting Mdina and Rabat for the cultural event ‘B’ impenn ‘il quddiem, grajjietek maggrufa,’ the opportunity to visit the National Museum of Natural History at a reduced price of Euro 2 per person and free entrance for children under 12 years.

The National Museum of Natural History is situated at Mdina in an eighteenth century palace which was restructured by Grand Master Antonio Manoel de Vilhena. This took place in 1726, with Vilhena Palace, designed in Parisian Baroque style, substituting the original building of the medieval Universita’. Some prison cells are found within the palace, where Mikiel Anton Vassalli, considered as father of the Maltese language, was held.

Vilhena Palace also served as a temporary hospital during 1837’s cholera outbreak, as a sanatorium for British troops in 1860, and as a hospital for tuberculosis patients in the early twentieth century. In 1973 it was officially inaugurated as a National Museum of Natural History. The main responsibility of the museum is the acquisition, collection and conservation of natural history material, with importance given to local biota. Serving as an important research institution, the value of the collections depends on the information available relating to the material.

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