The Inquisitors' Palace in Vittoriosa will be open free of charge on June 7, a public holiday.

The palace, is one of the very few surviving examples of a palace that would have been found all over Europe and South America in the early modern period, Heritage Malta said.

When Mgr Pietro Dusina arrived in Malta in 1574 as the first general inquisitor and apostolic delegate of the Maltese Islands, the Grand Master offered him the unused palace as an official residence. Almost all successive inquisitors sought to transform the palace into a decent mansion. They all shared the same cultural values of clerical baroque Roman society, and by the mid-18th century they had managed successfully to transform the building into a typical Roman palace.

The palace is the flagship of the Ethnography section of Heritage Malta.

During the Open Day, visitors will be able to see the different parts of the Palace including the tribunal where the accused were sentenced, the torture chamber, the piano nobile and the prison cells featuring graffiti carved by prisoners.

Coupled with its extremely rich history, the Inquisitor’s Palace is also an architectural jewel which fuses different styles of architecture marking the changes made to the building during the occupation by the different Inquisitors. It is one of the very few surviving palaces of its kind and the only one accessible to the public world wide.

Those visiting the Inquisitor’s Palace on June 7 will also have the opportunity of purchasing a number of Heritage Malta publications at a reduced price as well as benefiting from a 10 percent discount on new memberships.

During the Open Day, Heritage Malta will also be opening the Malta Maritime Museum, at a reduced rate of €3 per adult and €2.50 for concessions.

www.heritagemalta.org.