Malta’s new national-community art museum, MUZA, has now been permanently opened in the Maltese capital of Valletta.

The museum, which holds more than 20,000 pieces celebrating Maltese art, cost €10m (US$11.4m, £9m) to bring to fruition, four-fifths of which came from the European Regional Development Fund, according to the UK’s The Independent newspaper.

Among the exhibits are maps telling the story of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, which are listed in the Unesco Memory of the World Register. The project has been co-ordinated by Heritage Malta.

The art collection occupies the Auberge d’Italie – a 16th Century mansion built to house Italian-speaking knights of the Order of St John. It's subsequently been used as a courthouse and a post office, but now has been transformed into a sequence of galleries revealing Maltese culture through the ages. The building has been adapted to generate its own energy requirements through renewable sources.

Quoted on Malta Independent Online, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said: "MUZA is a gift to Malta in the occasion of Valletta 2018 as the European Capital of Culture. A gift for everyone. A gift for our children who as from this year will be able to bring their parents and it will be the children that will provide their parents with a free entry, not the other way round.

"Now we have a place in our Capital City which truly does justice to our cultural scene as a people, despite being the smallest Nation State in the European Union and also one of the smallest around the world."