The siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege in 1480 had been unsuccessful. Despite very strong defenses, the walls were demolished over the course of six months by Turkish artillery and mines.
Gun-wielding Ottoman Janissaries and defending Knights of Saint John at the siege of Rhodes, miniature from Süleymannâme
The English Post, the scene of heaviest fighting; the tenaille is on the left and the main wall is further behind it, visible in the background; on the right of the wide dry ditch is the counterscarp that the attackers had to climb down before storming the city wall. The ditch is enfiladed by the Tower of St. John, its bulwark and lower wall providing vertically stacked fields of overlapping fire. The stone cannonballs seen in the ditch are from the fighting.
Cannon of the Hospitallers at Saint-Nicholas Tower (Tour Saint-Nicolas), 1510, Rhodes. Arms of Emery d'Amboise, with Ottoman Turkish inscriptions Vitar: 35, Chap: 16, Sh (for Qarish): 11. Latin inscription TURIS + S + NICOLAI + PRO + DEFÉSOR, "For the defence of Saint-Nicholas Tower". Caliber: 23.0 centimetres (9.1 in) length: 255 centimetres (100 in) weight:1,427 kilograms (3,146 lb). Remitted by Abdülaziz to Napoleon III in 1862.
The tower of St. John at the East end of the English sector. The tower was built under Grand Master Antonio Fluvian (1421–37), and it had a gate. Later a barbican was built around it under Grand Master Piero Raimundo Zacosta (1461–67). Finally the large pentagonal bulwark was built in front of it c. 1487, and the gate was removed.
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller, is a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there until 1291, thereafter being based in Kolossi Castle in Cyprus (1302–1310), the island of Rhodes (1310–1522), Malta (1530–1798), and Saint Petersburg (1799–1801).
Pie postulatio voluntatis. Bull issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113 in favour of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which was to transform what was a community of pious men into an institution within the Church. By virtue of this document, the pope officially recognized the existence of the new organisation as an operative and militant part of the Roman Catholic Church, granting it papal protection and confirming its properties in Europe and Asia.
The Knights Hospitaller in the 13th century
Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson with senior knights, wearing the "Rhodian cross" on their habits. Dedicatory miniature in Gestorum Rhodie obsidionis commentarii (account of the Siege of Rhodes of 1480), BNF Lat 6067 fol. 3v, dated 1483/4.
Street of Knights in Rhodes
