Inside the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum lies an extraordinary survivor of the 1813 Malta plague.
An ORIGINAL plague cart once used to transport victims of the epidemic
Malta is famous for sunshine, beaches, the Knights of Malta and more than 7,000 years of history.
But hidden away in the historic town of Żabbar is an object connected to a considerably darker chapter of the island’s past.
Inside the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum stands an original hand-drawn plague hearse — commonly described as a plague cart — used during the devastating Malta plague epidemic of 1813–1814.
It is not a reconstruction.
It is not a film prop.
It is the real thing.
And the fact that it survived at all is remarkable.
Wooden objects that had come into contact with plague victims were commonly destroyed because they were feared to carry and spread contagion. The Żabbar plague cart somehow escaped that fate, survived for generations and was rediscovered in 1992 in the crypt of Żabbar’s parish church. Today it is preserved in the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum.
For anyone interested in Malta’s plague history, dark history, medical history or unusual things to see in Malta, this extraordinary artefact provides something that books alone cannot:
A physical connection to the people who experienced one of Malta’s most terrifying epidemics.
What Was the Malta Plague of 1813–1814?
The 1813–1814 Malta plague epidemic was the last major outbreak of plague to strike the Maltese Islands.
The disease appeared in Malta during the spring of 1813 and initially spread through Valletta before reaching other communities. Contemporary accounts describe increasingly severe measures intended to contain the epidemic: infected people were isolated, suspected goods were destroyed, communities were placed behind military cordons and the movement of people became heavily restricted.
More than 4,500 people are generally estimated to have died during the epidemic, from an island population of roughly 100,000. The outbreak eventually spread to Gozo before Malta was officially declared free of the epidemic in September 1814.
And amid this extraordinary public-health emergency came one of the grimmest practical problems imaginable.
What do you do with the dead?
The Plague Carts That Carried Malta’s Dead
As plague claimed lives across Malta, carts were used to transport victims.
These were not ceremonial funeral processions.
Death during an epidemic became frighteningly practical.
One contemporary military account paints a particularly horrifying picture of the plague in Valletta and Floriana. Regimental surgeon William Stafford recalled dead carts passing through Floriana so heavily loaded that their covers sometimes could not be closed.
The cart preserved today at Żabbar therefore represents much more than an unusual museum exhibit.
It belonged to the machinery of survival during an epidemic.
Someone pulled it.
Someone loaded it.
Families watched it arrive.
And for many people in Malta in 1813, the appearance of a plague cart in their street could mean that death had quite literally reached their doorstep.
That is what makes seeing the surviving Żabbar plague cart such a powerful experience.
Why Did So Few Plague Artefacts Survive?
There is a wonderfully frustrating irony for historians.
The very objects that could tell us most about historical epidemics were often precisely the objects people had the strongest reason to destroy.
During Malta’s 1813 plague, contemporary authorities believed that contaminated objects could retain and transmit the disease. Goods regarded as susceptible to contagion were therefore identified and destroyed, while possessions associated with infected people could be burned.
That makes the survival of a wooden vehicle associated with plague victims particularly unusual.
As an account of the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum notes, wooden objects that had come into contact with plague victims were generally burned because people feared they could continue spreading the disease.
Yet somebody, somewhere, did not destroy this one.
And being a little naughty occasionally has its benefits for future historians. 😏
The Żabbar Plague Cart Survived and Then Disappeared
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the story is what happened afterwards.
The plague cart did not spend the next two centuries proudly displayed as a relic of Malta’s medical history.
Instead, it effectively disappeared.
It was eventually rediscovered in 1992 in the crypt of Żabbar parish church before becoming part of the collection of the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum.
Imagine discovering it.
A wooden cart hidden away beneath a Maltese church — and then realising what it had once carried.
Suddenly, the plague of 1813 is no longer merely a paragraph in a history book.
It has wheels.
Visiting the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum in Malta
The plague cart alone makes the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum worth discovering, but it is far from the museum’s only treasure.
Its varied collections span different periods of Malta’s history and include religious and secular artefacts, historic ex-votos, objects connected with the Knights of St John, paintings, coins, medals, military material and other unusual pieces connected with Żabbar and the Maltese Islands.
It is exactly the sort of place we love at Malta Themed Tours.
Not simply the famous attractions everybody photographs, but the smaller museums, forgotten objects and strange fragments of history that allow us to meet the people who actually lived through Malta’s past.
And a huge GRAZZI must go to the wonderfully friendly volunteers who look after these treasures and, just as importantly, share their stories with the rest of us history addicts. 🇲🇹❤️
Malta’s Plague History Did Not Begin in 1813
The surviving Żabbar plague cart belongs to the epidemic of 1813–1814, but Malta’s relationship with plague stretches much further back.
Centuries before British Malta faced the epidemic of 1813, the Knights of St John were already confronting outbreaks of disease.
One particularly fascinating epidemic struck Malta in 1592–1593.
And this is where our story travels from Żabbar to Valletta.
Because more than two centuries before the Żabbar plague cart rolled through Maltese streets, another physician was fighting plague on the island — and he left us an extraordinary contemporary account of what he witnessed.
His name was Pietro Parisi.
Discover Malta’s Plague History on Our Valletta Plague Walking Tour
If the Żabbar plague cart shows us the physical reality of epidemic death, our Valletta Plague Tour: Sin, Sorcery & Survival explores something equally fascinating:
What happened to the living?
Malta Themed Tours’ immersive Valletta plague walking tour takes guests back to the epidemic of 1592–1593, exploring the outbreak through the streets of Malta’s capital and through surviving contemporary evidence.
This is not simply another Valletta walking tour covering famous buildings and dates.
Instead, we explore what happens when an epidemic begins pulling society apart.
Doctors argue.
Authorities struggle to control infection.
Families face impossible decisions.
Poverty collides with public-health regulations.
Fear spreads alongside disease.
Religion, politics and medicine compete for answers.
And when conventional treatments fail, desperate people sometimes turn towards folk remedies, magic, charms and alleged witchcraft.
Walk Valletta With a Plague Doctor
Valletta Plague Tour: Sin, Sorcery & Survival — Enter Valletta, 1593 and Walk with a Plague Doctor is an immersive dark-history experience created by Malta Themed Tours.
Led through atmospheric and lesser-known streets of Valletta, guests uncover the medical beliefs, social tensions and very human stories surrounding one of Malta’s historic plague epidemics.
Central to the experience is the testimony of Pietro Parisi, the physician brought to Malta during the 1592–1593 epidemic.
His surviving writings give us something remarkably valuable: the perspective of a doctor attempting to understand and combat the disease while the crisis was actually unfolding.
That allows our Malta plague tour to go beyond simply asking:
How many people died?
Instead, we ask:
What did people become when they were frightened they might be next?
A Different Kind of Valletta Dark History Tour
Our Valletta Plague Walking Tour explores themes including plague medicine, quarantine, isolation, disease control, religion, poverty, prostitution, alleged witchcraft, desperate remedies and the extraordinary choices people made when normal life began to collapse.
There are saints.
There are sinners.
There are frightened doctors.
There are questionable medical treatments.
There are people behaving magnificently.
And naturally, because this is Malta, there are people behaving considerably less magnificently. 😏
But underneath the darker stories lies something more important.
Hope.
Epidemics reveal selfishness and fear, but they also reveal courage, charity and the extraordinary lengths ordinary people will go to help complete strangers.
That human story lies at the heart of our Valletta plague tour.
Things to Do in Malta for Dark-History Lovers
f your idea of discovering Malta goes slightly beyond beaches and cocktails, there is an extraordinary amount waiting beneath the surface.
For travellers searching for unusual things to do in Malta, historical tours in Valletta, dark history in Malta, off-the-beaten-track Malta attractions or simply the stranger stories of the Maltese Islands, plague history offers an entirely different way to understand the country.
Visit the original 1813 plague cart at the Żabbar Sanctuary Museum.
Then come to Valletta and walk through the world of an earlier Maltese epidemic with us.
Two epidemics.
Two centuries.
One small Mediterranean island repeatedly confronting the same terrifying enemy.
And thousands of human stories caught in between.
Book a Valletta Plague Tour With Award Winning Malta Themed Tours
Valletta Plague Tour: Sin, Sorcery & Survival — Enter Valletta, 1593 and Walk with a Plague Doctor runs on selected dates and can also be arranged as a private Valletta tour.
If you’re looking for a Valletta historical walking tour, Malta dark history tour, plague tour in Malta, or simply something considerably different from the usual sightseeing experience, come and discover the capital they don’t put on postcards.
Walk the lesser-known streets.
Meet the doctors, Knights, sinners, survivors and alleged witches.
Discover the strange medicine of 1593.
And experience Malta’s plague history where much of that history actually happened.
Because this isn’t simply a story about how people died.
It’s about what the living became in order to survive.
Malta Themed Tours — History Lives Here. ⚔️🇲🇹
Valletta Plague Tour: Sin, Sorcery & Survival – Enter Valletta, 1593. Walk with a Plague Doctor.
Experience Malta’s Must-Do World-Class Immersive Tour with Malta Themed Tours
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