Parish Church of St. Mary in Attard

In 1610, Fr Stiefnu Buttigieg commissioned architect Tumas Dingli to design a new church for the town of Attard. The existing church had proved to be too small and a larger one was needed.  Dingli was in charge of all the works, including the sculpture of the church.  The Parish Church of St Mary is a jewel of Renaissance art and has a Latin cross plan, 31 metres long and 26 and a half metres wide.
Within the church, you can find a sanctuary or choir, two transepts, a nave, two sacristies and ten altars. Its construction was finished around 1628. 

In 1887, when Fr. Karm Azzopardi came to Attard, he called on the craftsmen and artisans of the town to give him a helping hand in restoring the church. Fr Karm Debono was put in charge of these works. Fr Debono also taught the art of restoration to the parish priest Fr Azzopardi as well as to two other priests - brothers Nikol and Karm Mifsud. Together they worked hard and fast and carried out sculpture works on the lunettes, around the niches and the frieze.

 

When Fr Dun Gwann Ebejer was the Attard Parish Priest, he commissioned a statue of St Mary from Maison Raffl in Paris in 1874. This was paid for by donations collected from parishioners.
When the statue arrived, it was welcomed by a joyous procession leading it to its new home, with great applause and cries of joy. 
The Statue was placed on the previous statue’s pedestal, where it stayed for 50 years. After this, thanks to the generosity of the community, the statue was placed atop the current pedestal. 
The year was 1925 and the new pedestal was commissioned by Manwel Buhagiar.  It is the work of three parishioners working on the original designs of Mro Karm Debono. When Dun Ġużepp Dalmas was Parish Priest, the statue was professionally cleaned by Chev. Alfred Camilleri Cauchi. He carefully researched the composition of the statue and tailored his restoration job accordingly. When he’d finished, the original Maison Raffl colours finally re-emerged.