Msida Bastion Historic Garden; Malta's first garden cemetery

Overlooking Pietà Creek and hidden in a sunken garden very close to the public library in Floriana, Msida Bastion Cemetery is the only surviving cemetery of four that were located near the Floriana bastions. The other three cemeteries – the Quarantine, Greek Orthodox and Cholera – are no longer in existence and the land has been built upon

Malta’s fist garden cemetery was the main protestant cemetery or burial place on the island from about 1806.The British authorities first used the Floriana Bastion for mixed interment, which later became known as The Msida Bastion cemetery. Although the Msida Bastion cemetery emulated some of the British contemporary ideas and cemetery typologies, it was not truly the vision of what the British garden cemetery ought to be. It was a bastion modified as a cemetery. A true garden cemetery had to be built to communicate specific ideas and functions. Even though the Msida Bastion cemetery was sufficient for the British government for some time, eventfully they needed to build a garden cemetery for burial and to reflect their contemporary zeitgeist and values. As early as 1806, due to Msida Bastion cemetery, Malta was already introduced to a mixture of symbolism of different religions and different cultures. The artistic funerary tradition found in this cemetery is continued and highlighted in some of the monuments’ craftsmanship and design seen in other Maltese cemeteries, such as Ta’ Braxia and Addolorata cemetery. Ta’ Braxia became a genuine example of garden cemetery, and the Addolorata cemetery embodied the Romantic values, architecture and funerary symbolism as the new established form for nineteenth century burial.