Pillar 01 · History & Heritage

Villa Cagliares (It-Tempju): The Bishop’s Hunting Lodge

Just outside Żejtun, on what used to be open country, sits Villa Cagliares — known locally as It-Tempju, “the temple”. It was built in the early 17th century for Bishop Baldassare Cagliares as a country residence and hunting lodge, and the building survives in remarkably legible form.

This article is a stub. Access to Villa Cagliares depends on the property’s current arrangements; we’ll update visiting details as they shift.

The bishop’s house

Baldassare Cagliares was Bishop of Malta from 1615 to 1633, the first Maltese-born bishop in many generations and a notable patron of building. The villa he commissioned at Żejtun belongs to the small group of Maltese country houses that combine a working agricultural estate with a recognisably aristocratic residence: a square plan, a colonnaded courtyard, and outbuildings sized for stables and an oil press. The local nickname It-Tempju is older than anyone now alive, and probably refers either to the villa’s symmetrical, almost templar facade or to its formal garden layout.

The building has had a complicated 20th century — periods of disuse, partial restoration, ownership changes — but the core of the structure is intact and its setting in the surrounding fields gives a clear sense of how the bishop and his household actually used the place. [LOCAL FACT — Mattew to confirm current ownership, access, and whether any guided visits run.]

A working country estate

Villa Cagliares was not just a leisure retreat. The agricultural buildings around the main house — stables, oil press, storage rooms, a small chapel — make clear that the estate was actively farmed for its olive oil, its grain, and its game. Bishop Cagliares used it as a country residence and hunting lodge, but it earned its keep as a productive estate while he was away. That dual character — formal house, working farm — is typical of better Maltese country residences of the period, and Villa Cagliares is one of the cleaner surviving examples. The setting still gives a sense of how the bishop’s household used the place across the seasons.

What this article will cover

  • Bishop Cagliares: who he was and why he built here
  • The plan of the villa and what each space was for
  • The agricultural estate and how it tied the villa into Żejtun’s olive economy
  • The 20th-century story of disuse and restoration
  • Where to view the building from if it isn’t open

Read more on this pillar

Part of our History & Heritage pillar. Pair with Aedis Danielis, the olive heritage, and our architecture reading guide.

Mattew Cassar

Resident · Writer

Mattew writes zejtun.com from a flat above his grandfather’s old workshop on Triq San Girgor. He has lived in Żejtun for twenty-three of his thirty-one years.