Tuesday, April 24, 2018, Mdina, Malta (St Paul's Cathedral)

- April 25, 2018

Late morning today we traveled to the beautiful St. Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina. Prior to entering the cathedral, we stopped for a great view back toward Valletta and for some lunch.

It might have been fun to have traveled by horse drawn carriage but it was about three miles from Valletta and time was too short.

Mdina is enclosed in a fort with deep moats.

We found new friends, Lori and Wes, and a great restaurant with awesome German Weizenbeir!

Tummies full and on our way to St. Paul's Cathedral and museum.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul, commonly known as St. Paul's Cathedral or the Mdina Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Mdina, Malta, dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle. The cathedral was founded in the 12th century, and according to tradition it stands on the site of where Roman governor Publius met St. Paul following his shipwreck on Malta. The original cathedral was severely damaged in the 1693 Sicily earthquake, so it was dismantled and rebuilt in the Baroque style to a design of the Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafà between 1696 and 1705. The cathedral is regarded as Gafà's masterpiece.

The cathedral is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta, and since the 19th century this function has been shared with St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

According to tradition, the site of the Mdina cathedral was originally occupied by a palace belonging to Saint Publius, the Roman governor of Melite who greeted Paul the Apostle after he was shipwrecked in Malta. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul cured Publius' father and many other sick people on the island. The population of Malta subsequently converted to Christianity, with Publius becoming the first Bishop of Malta. It was, however most likely occupied by a Mosque which was built during the Arab period.

The first cathedral which stood on the site is said to have been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it fell into disrepair during the Arab period (the churches in Melite were looted after the Aghlabid invasion in 870).

Following the Norman invasion in 1091, Christianity was reestablished as the dominant religion in the Maltese Islands. A cathedral dedicated to St. Paul was built in the 12th and 13th centuries. The cathedral was built in the Gothic and Romanesque styles, and it was enlarged and modified a number of times.

In 1679, Bishop Miguel Jerónimo de Molina and the cathedral chapter decided to replace the medieval choir with one built in the Baroque style, and the architect Lorenzo Gafà was appointed to design and oversee the construction. The cathedral were severely damaged a few years later in the 1693 Sicily earthquake, and although parts of the building were undamaged, on 11 April 1693 the decision was taken to dismantle the old cathedral and rebuild it in the Baroque style to a design of Gafà. The choir and sacristy, which had survived the earthquake, were incorporated into the new cathedral.

Works began in 1696, and the building was almost complete by 1702. It was consecrated by Bishop Davide Cocco Palmieri on 8 October 1702. The cathedral was fully completed on 24 October 1705, when work on the dome was finished. The building is regarded as Gafà's masterpiece.

In the late 1720s, some medieval houses to the south of the cathedral were demolished in order to make way for a square, the Bishop's Palace and the Seminary (now the Cathedral Museum). The square in front of the cathedral was enlarged in the early 19th century following the demolition of some medieval buildings.