Among the hundreds of musical manuscripts discovered locked away in one of the cupboards of the sacristy of the Cathedral of Malta in 1969 was the entire collection of sacred works by Benigno Zerafa (1726–1804). Zerafa, who served as maestro di cappella at the Cathedral of St Paul at Mdina from 1744 to 1786, was the leading Maltese composer of sacred music of the mid-eighteenth century. His compositional style reveals him to be a composer of the Neapolitan galant – the period linking the outgoing Late Baroque with the oncoming Classical age. Along with other scores, the Zerafa collection was transferred from the sacristy to the premises of the Archives of the Cathedral of Malta – then, the old Seminary – also at Mdina, where it was professionally catalogued and shelved. This event proved to be a landmark in late twentieth-century Maltese musical life: a find that has brought to light musical wonders left untouched for many decades.

Benigno Zerafa was born at Rabat, Malta, on 25 August 1726, and baptised on the same day in the Cathedral Church at Mdina. His godparents, the nobles Caietano Mompalao Apap and Baroness Antonia Castelletti, gave him ‘Caietano’ as his second name. His father, Nicola Zerafa, described as son of the late Gregorio and Rosa Zerafa of Rabat, was a surgeon by profession. He had married Teresa Lombardo, daughter of the late Bartolomeo, also of Rabat, on 17 September 1716 at the Rabat parish church of St Paul. Eight children were born of this marriage: four sons and four daughters, Benigno being the fifth child. Two sons, Giovanni Battista and Benigno, received Holy Orders, while Giuseppe, the fourth-born, continued in his father's footsteps and became a surgeon.

As a surgeon, Benigno's father enjoyed a relatively high social status. The Zerafa family was living at that time in the Santo Spirito Hospital area, in what is nowadays known as Main Street but was then called Strada del Signor Manduca. This was not to be their permanent residence. The Ecclesiastical Census records of 1761 show that the family had moved into a house in Strada del Carmine at Mdina (Citta Notabile), near to the Castelletti/Mompalao family. Another census, carried out in 1792, records that the Zerafa family had moved back to the suburb of Mdina, Rabat, this time taking up residence in Strada Nuova, nowadays known as Cosmana Navarra Street.