One World... Scheduling the past
Mepa schedules Palazzo Stagno, Qormi
Palazzo Stagno is a 16th Century building located in Sqaq Stagno, Qormi just over 100 metres due west of St George's parish church as shown on the map in the national protective inventory card. The palace and gardens cover an area of over 4,000 metres squared. The architect of this palace is still unknown.
The palace is laid out on two floors and built around a central courtyard. Access to the upper floor is through a wide open stairway on one side of the courtyard. The palace contains various remarkable architectural features such as the ornate stone-carved ceiling of the chapel, stone-carved mouldings and grotesque masks embellishing the doors, windows and corbels, a 100-step spiral staircase crowned by a dome, which is a landmark in the surrounding landscape.
The gardens of this palace are divided into three different areas, namely a formal garden surrounded by high walls, on top of which was a walk-way that survives in part. This used to lead to an elaborate staircase of which only traces remain. This garden leads to a larger orange grove with formal walkways and stone-cut irrigation channels. To the North of the palace and through the central courtyard, is another smaller garden, the wall of which contains various square holes which used to serve as dove cotes (barumbara). The only extant remains of this barumbara is the southern wall. The rest of this barumbara has been demolished to make space for modern garages fronting onto Triq l-Izbandola.
The front elevation of the Palace is characterised by a number of apertures, each of which is elaborately decorated by carved mouldings and grotesque heads placed in rectangular panels "more reminiscent of Spanish colonial work from Peru or Mexico". These decorations vary from one another making each aperture unique in its decorative work.
The palace also contains a beast driven water lifting machinery constructed of timber gear wheels (sienja tal-miexi) that has survived almost intact, and other more recent water-pumping equipment that is considered obsolete by modern standards.