Parish Church of the Nativity of Our Lady

The Parish Church of the Nativity of Our Lady dominates Naxxar's main square. Designed by the architect Tommaso Dingli in the early seventeenth century and enlarged several times since, it is one of the more architecturally distinguished of Malta's many parish churches, with a restrained exterior that gives way to a rich interior.

Inside, paintings attributed to the school of Mattia Preti and works by Stefano Erardi and Francesco Zahra line the walls. The frescoes on the vault were added in the nineteenth century. The church is at its most alive during the Festa tal-Vitorja on 8 September, when the whole town turns out for processions, band marches, and fireworks in celebration of the Victory — the feast commemorates both the relief of the Great Siege in 1565 and the victory at Lepanto in 1571.

things to do sight
A story
The church's imposing bronze main door, installed in 1913, bears scenes from the life of the Virgin in low relief. It was a gift from the parishioners of the Maltese community of Alexandria — a reminder that tens of thousands of Maltese emigrated to Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where they formed tight-knit communities that remained Catholic and Maltese-speaking for generations.