PAUL (St), Gave or Grotto of, in the island of Malta, where St Paul and his company took shelter from the rains, when the viper fastened on his arm. Upon this spot there is a church built by the famed A-los de Vignacourt, grand-master of the order, in the year 1606, a very handsome, though but a small, structure. On the altar-piece is a curious painting, representing the apostle's shaking off the viper, surrounded with men, women, and children, in attitudes of admiration and surprise, and in the old Maltese garb; and the whole very well executed. On the top of the painting is the following inscription:
Vipera ignis æta calore frustra Pauli
Manum invadit; is infule benedicens
Anguibus & herbis adimit omne virus.
M. DC. V.