Tucked in one of the Citadel’s quaint and tranquil narrow streets is the Folklore Museum which is managed by Heritage Malta. Taking the narrow path to the left of the cathedral, one soon reaches a set of charming late medieval houses round the first corner on the left. A closer look will reveal that their architectural style is not encountered anywhere else in Gozo. Though perhaps a little austere at first sight, on stepping inside, one immediately feels embraced by their warm and welcoming interior and nostalgically transported back in time and senses – to the way of life as experienced by our ancestors in years gone by.

Brief history and characteristics

These late medieval houses in Milite Bernardo Street (itself also a narrow path, typical of the Citadel) were probably built towards the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. However, they were built in different phases and, at some later stage, were joined together. The house at the heart of the structural group appears to have been the earliest while the southern one seems to have been the last to be built. The structural group, however, continued to undergo alterations and adaptations, reflecting the arising needs of the successive occupants from time to time.

The architectural features are basically Sicilian, apparently betraying Catalan influence and may owe something to the style diffused in Sicily and Southern Italy by the Chiaramonte family when these were Counts of Malta in the late 14th century. It is very likely that this style survived locally after it had become obsolete in Sicily.

In their heyday, these houses were occupied by rich owners who may also have been very important and influential on the island. They were among those urban residences typically belonging to the rich stratum of society. While the first floor (piano nobile) formed the living quarters of the residing family as suggested by the well-lit rooms (among other characteristics) on the same floor, the ground floor rooms served as both quarters and working area of the serving personnel, besides providing the necessary storage space for the daily commodities and food supplies.

Though not spectacular, their interiors are pleasant. The facades with rounded doorways and heavy arch voussoirs, the double windows divided by a slender column, and the delicately carved stonework all make these houses unique in the Maltese islands as outstanding examples of late medieval domestic architecture; though other examples can also found in Mdina and Vittoriosa.

Restoration and ethnographic display

To ensure their preservation, these houses were acquired by the government in 1981 to be restored. Subsequent to their restoration, they were turned into a Folklore Museum opened in 1983. The museum provides a wide range of exhibits featuring both the rural and the domestic traditional ways of life of the Gozitans in years gone by.

As if somehow in conformity with the original use of the ground floor rooms and the social status of the serving personnel once occupying them, the exhibits in these rooms are related, in their majority, to rural trades and skills like agriculture, stone-masonry, carpentry, etc. Thus, one finds an array of traditional agricultural implements like sickles, spades, winnowing forks and shovels, ploughs, together with a varied selection of grinding mills of various sizes, both manual and beast-driven. The exhibits here also include various traditional stone-dressing tools as well as a great selection of traditional tools employed respectively by the carpenter and the blacksmith. Different grain and liquid measures as well as different types of weights and scales (like the steelyard and the grocer’s scales), besides wine barrels and equipment related to wine-making, are also displayed on the ground floor.

Exhibits on the mezzanine level vary from domestic crafts like lace-making and weaving to other minor ones like book-binding. They represent a wide range of crafts including some which were less common and which, nowadays, are hardly heard of any longer.

The first floor rooms, on the other hand, are used as exhibition areas displaying items related to traditional pastimes and leisure like bird-trapping and hunting as well as miniature church-modelling complete with miniature religious accessories usually employed therein. Perhaps against all expectations, here one also finds a modest display related to traditional fireworks associated with the local village festa.

Christmastime also makes an appearance among the first floor display.

A small but representative selection of crib figurines reminds the visitor of the event which Christmas is all about: the birth of Jesus Christ.

On the same floor, one is also greeted by an interesting selection of traditional costumes, an amazing collection of elaborately-worked clay statuettes, and a number of furniture items which one expects to find in an urban house of this calibre.

These furniture items also help in re-creating – to a certain extent – a contemporary domestic atmosphere.

Not far from a semi-reconstructed kitchenette, a side room on the same floor is entirely devoted to the traditional fishing industry.

Apart from the main sections represented by the exhibits listed above, one finds also specialities like the set of miniature toys carved in stone and exhibited in one of the ground floor rooms, the ex-voto collection displayed on the first floor, as well as a lot of domestic earthenware and storage jars associated with various uses and spread all over the place.

Although the entire collection does not rank as exhaustive, it does reach its aim of representing the broadest possible spectrum of trades and customs reflecting the Gozitan folk’s rural and domestic traditional lifestyles.

This alone is sufficient to make the museum well worth a visit.

The Folklore Museum is open daily from Monday to Sunday between 9am and 5pm. Visitors can opt for a Citadel Multi-site ticket which sells for Lm2 and which gives holders access to the Museum of Archaeology, the Old Prison, the Natural Science Museum and of course, the Folklore Museum. These four museums are all managed by Heritage Malta and are all within walking distance of one another.

Article provided by Heritage Malta