File:Malta, Mount Carmel Hospital in 1905.jpg

English: Malta, Mount Carmel Hospital in 1905

When plans were starting to go ahead, in 1852, for the building of a new mental hospital to take patients from Villa Franconi and the Ospizio in Floriana, a competition was held among architects with a number of architects submitting their entries. Among these were G. Bonavia, G Grognet, Mallia and Caruana, G. Diacono and F. Cianciolo. The plans of Cianciolo were chosen and after some alterations to the plans to keep the cost within reasonable limits, a stretch of land was chosen and building started in 1853. The hospital was complete in 1861. Patients were transferred in the dead of night from Floriana to Attard.

However, it eventually came to the attention that Mount Carmel Hospital was in fact an exact replica of Wakefield Asylum in Yorkshire, England, which had been built in 1818 to accomodate 150 patients and was know as the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. It was realised that Cianciolo had, in fact, plagiarized the plans and there was also very serious doubt as to whether the man was an architect at all, according to Joseph Roger Saliba in his "Psychiatry in Malta".