The St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation has embarked on the project of extension and refurbishment at the Museum at St John’s Co-Cathedral which, it said, will be phased out in the next three years to be able to showcase all the collections it possesses and to accommodate the ever increasing amount of visitors.

“The extension will have no direct impact on the church, designed is such a way that will allow flexible opening hours of the museum,” The Foundation said. “Thus, priceless collections will be exhibited as well as conserved for future generations to appreciate.”

The current museum has entered the dismantling phase in preparation for the total state-of-the-art project, which will also increase the exhibit area to show all the priceless artefacts in the right conservation environment.

The Foundation said that these will include the twenty-nine Flemish Tapestries, the Sacred Vestments, the Silver Collection, the Illuminated manuscripts, and the Cappella Ardente.

The project plans include a Caravaggio Centre, this will focus on, and highlight, the works of one of the most celebrated artists of the Baroque era, including his most prestigious painting – The Beheading of St John – which, the Foundation said, will remain in the Oratory.

Merchants Street will be the location for the planned new entrance to the museum, and the Foundation said that it will provide easy accessibility for the physically challenged, as well as comfortable facilities for visitors.

The project includes a Tapestry Chamber, still to be constructed, this will house together the one-of-a-kind set of tapestries, which had been on display in several different rooms.

There will also be a Vestments hall, which will form part of the original carapecchia intended as a room where the Grand Masters used to dress in their sacred robes appropriate for the occasion. This will house the collections donated by various Grand Masters as gioia to St John’s Co-Cathedral then their conventual church.

Various religious monstrances and silver artefacts currently not being displayed anywhere in the current layout of the museum will be contained in The Silver Vaults.

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