[1][2] On 28 March 1592, the Grand Master Cardinal Hugh De Verdalle and Bishop Mgr Tomaso Gargallo received an apostolic brief that a Jesuit seminary was to be erected in Malta.

On 25 March 1703, Mgr Cocco Pamlieri in his palace at Valletta stipulated the foundation act and the decree for the erection of a seminary in Mdina.

Both his uncle Melchior Alpheran de Bussan and brother Jean-Melchior Alphéran were members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

He is remembered mostly for building the Mdina seminary, now the Cathedral Museum, in 1733 as well as for financing the printing of a Maltese translation of Cardinal Bellarmino's Catholic Catechism which was distributed to every parish in Malta.

In the year 1749, the artist Antoine Favrè was paid the sum of 250 scudi for his set of paintings installed within the octagonal seminary chapel dedicated to the Annunciation.

An issue had been raised by the cathedral chapter to restore the two paintings by the Mattia Preti de pertininza which were found neglected in one of the rooms of the seminary.

By the early 1920s, the training for aspiring priests returned to Manresa House in Floriana, the idea to use the former seminary building as a place for permanent exhibitions was discussed in Chapters Meetings of May 1926 and continued on the advent of the World War II, exactly in August 1938.

In the years between 1939 and 1942, the edifice saw another change when the political vicissitudes of Malta at the time of World War II brought to Mdina Seminary the St. Edward's College students from an unsafe Cottonera area.

In the late 1940s, the building served to accommodate the nuns of the Good Shepherd while certain areas were reserved for the classes of a small private school administered by the chapter.

His register of purchases, titled Primo Costo, is an invaluable document, detailing over 85 paintings, including religious works, landscapes, and still lifes.

[14][15] On 18 November 2008, an extensive collection of antique silverware, amassed by former Speaker Jimmy Farrugia, was donated to the Cathedral Museum, Mdina.