A rare silver ingot dating back to the short but turbulent period when Napoleon was in Malta will go on display during Notte Bianca on Saturday.

The ingot was recently acquired by the Central Bank of Malta and, after decades of obscurity, will be on show at the bank.

In 1799, French authorities in Malta ordered the gold and silver seized from the Monte di Pieta, the State-owned pawning institution, to be melted and cast into bars.

The bars were then divided into small ingots, each of which was stamped with its intrinsic value in scudi, tari and grani diagonally across the centre.

Around 3,441lbs of silver was confiscated from the Monte di Pieta, melted and converted into 4,285 ingots, for a total value of around 80,834 scudi.

The first casting of silver ingots took place on April 16, 1799. All the ingots were stamped with a lion rampart in an oval frame.

The edges where the ingot had been removed from the bar were stamped with a paschal lamb to prevent fraud.

Only one gold and seven silver ingots have remained from all those produced by the French during the blockade.

The gold and two silver ingots form part of the National Collection of Malta.

One silver ingot is held in the collections of the British Museum and another two silver ones are found at the Museum of the Order of St John at Clerkenwell, London, UK.