St Paul's Cathedral, Mdina, rebuilt from scratch after the 1693 earthquake

Mdina Cathedral is the building that gives the city’s main square its point, and for me it’s the paid visit most worth doing inside the walls. It doesn’t have the fame of St John’s in Valletta, but it’s the older seat, it’s the archbishop’s church, and it tells a better story, that of a cathedral that fell down and was rebuilt in a single decade.

A seat with very old roots

The Metropolitan Chapter, which runs it, traces Malta’s Christian community back to letters from Pope Gregory the Great to Lucillus, Bishop of Malta, at the end of the 6th century. The first written reference to a cathedral on the island dates from 1299, shortly after Malta came under Aragonese rule. A few pieces survive from those centuries and are worth seeking out, such as the Petronilla bell, cast in Venice in 1370 and described by the Chapter as the oldest medieval bell left in Malta, and a chestnut door carved in 1535 by Cola Curmi, now at the entrance to the sacristy.

In 1944 the Bishop of Malta became a Metropolitan Archbishop and the cathedral took the Metropolitan title. The Chapter’s 29 canons serve both this church, which is also Mdina’s parish church, and St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

The 1693 earthquake and Lorenzo Cafà

The part of the story I enjoy most starts in 1679, when the Chapter commissioned a new Baroque choir from the Maltese architect Lorenzo Cafà. On 11 January 1693 an earthquake linked to Etna hit Sicily and Malta. Of the old cathedral, only that newly finished choir was left standing. On 11 April that year, with a report from the Order’s resident engineer Mederico Blondel, the Chapter decided to rebuild.

Cafà produced a wooden model and the new church was ready in 1702, a few months before he died. It was consecrated on 8 October 1703 and the dome was completed in 1705. What you see today is therefore a Baroque cathedral by one architect, which is unusual for a church with such a long history. Two palaces in the same style flank the façade, the old seminary, now the Cathedral Museum, and the bishop’s palace.

What to look out for inside

The Manno brothers finished the ceiling frescoes in 1774. The one in the dome was largely lost in another earthquake, in 1856. In 1888 the Maltese clockmaker Michelangelo Sapiano made the two clocks on the façade, one showing the time and the other the date.

I’d look for three things. The floor, with its inlaid marble tombstones, which is why the Chapter asks you not to wear stilettos. The small window high up by the high altar, from which the bishop could follow Mass from his palace without coming down. And, in the sacristy doors, the holes for the cats that kept the mice at bay. The Chapter explains that a foundation paid the sacristans to feed them, a custom that only ended recently because the cat kept setting off the alarms at night.

Tickets and opening times

The combined ticket costs €15 for adults and €10 for over-60s and students, and under-12s go free. You buy it at the Cathedral Museum, to the right of the façade, and it covers both. The cathedral opens Monday to Saturday from 09:30 to 16:30, with the last ticket at 16:15. On Sundays, between 15:00 and 17:00, the most you get is a look inside from behind a rope.

Watch out for weddings. The Chapter posts notices of early closures for services, and in September 2026 it announced two afternoons in a row closing ahead of time, so it’s worth a look at its website the evening before. Photography without flash is fine; food and drink aren’t. If you want to go in to pray rather than sightsee, the Chapter asks you to speak to a member of staff, who will take you to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.

Fitting it into a day in Mdina

The cathedral stands on St Paul’s Square, in the middle of Mdina. I’d slot it in around midday, between a morning wander and Palazzo Falson, which is close by. If you’re curious about how the Order’s clergy lived outside church, St Paul’s Grotto in Rabat, with the Wignacourt Museum, is the natural follow-on, since that building began as the residence of the Knights’ chaplains. For later in the day there’s something lighter, the Mdina Dungeons, open until 21:30 from June to September.