Muża – Mużew Nazzjonali ta’ l-Arti is the chosen name for the new museum of fine arts. It is Malta’s flagship project celebrating Valletta as Europe’s Capital of Culture.

Its inauguration last week comes, like so many other projects scheduled to coincide with Valletta’s celebration as Europe’s Capital of Culture, several months later than planned but just in time to host an international conference of the Network of European Museum Organisations.

Late it may be but no one will deny that it is an exciting project. The newly-opened fine arts museum has transferred from its old, much smaller building in South Street to the outstandingly impressive Auberge d’Italie in Merchants Street, which has been imaginatively renovated into what has already been dubbed by The Guardian newspaper as one of the “top-15 must-see new galleries and museums opening this year”.

Renovations to the historic building, which until a year ago housed the Ministry for Tourism and the Malta Tourism Authority and, before that, the Malta Post Office – have been careful to strike the best balance between retaining the striking splendour of the grand auberge and showing off the art works on display to best advantage.

Much research by Heritage Malta has gone into the choice of colours of Muża. The chosen colour range complements the colour of the local stone and includes light brown wood materials, cream-coloured panels and light cream interpretation panels.

Provisions have been made to ensure it is energy-efficient and that the most modern climate control facilities protect the art works on display. Visitors to the new museum will have an opportunity to experience various audiovisual aids to enable them to understand and even get into the minds and techniques employed by the artists to inspire their work.

The fine arts gallery and museum have been organised along four broad ‘story lines’: Mediterranean, Europe, Empire, and the Artist. There are more than 20,000 works of art. Spanning five centuries, the visitor may expect to find paintings from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century as well as good contemporary Maltese art in the modern day.

The four ‘story lines’ will showpiece, among many others, those rich works of art brought to Malta by the Knights of Malta since no tradition of fine art existed on the island before then: Mattia Preti, Antoine de Favray, Domenico de Michelino, Domenico Tintoretto and others. But, as we know, the artistic activity engendered by the Knightscreated a response in the Maltese that asserted itself, as may be seen in the paintings on display by Stefano Erardi, Francesco Zahra and so many others.

The gallery will not only display paintings. It will also include fine pieces of 17th and 18th century Maltese and Sicilian furniture as well as silverware and jars from the Santo Spirito Hospital and sculptures by Melchiore Gafà, Antonio Sciortino and others.

Listing these names only gives a flavour of what the visitor might expect at Muża. What cannot be doubted is that, in creating such a splendid fine arts museum and gallery, Malta has taken a major step forward in displaying the artistic riches with which history has endowed it and providing Maltese artists with a worthy international platform on which to showcase their artistic talents.

Muża could well go down as the prime legacy of Valletta 2018.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial