The Town of Rhodes, 1306-1356

The Hospitallers began their conquest of Rhodes in 1306. The town itself seems to have come into their possession in 1309, and they were to hold it as their headquarters until the Ottoman conquest of 1522. In this survey Anthony Luttrell, the foremost historian of the Hospitallers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has brought together the evidence for the history and topography of the town of Rhodes during the first fifty years of the Order's rule. The Order was later to make many changes to the urban landscape, not least by rebuilding the walls so as to withstand artillery, and more recently, in the first half of the twentieth century, the Italian authorities were responsible for some decidedly insensitive restoration work. As a result, our knowledge and understanding of the town during the period under review is patchy, and Dr Luttrell has done well to draw together the archaeological and documentary materials to demonstrate how much can be discovered. Inevitably this means that much of this book concentrates on describing the nature and extent of the evidence, and the author has included the texts of a number of relevant documents, including several not previously published. There is, however, much useful discussion of the commercial importance of Hospitaller Rhodes and of the town's social composition. There is much here that is instructive, although it is not always clear which of the buildings discussed are still in existence, and, if they are, how far they retain their fourteenth-century aspect. Nor is it clear whether the date 1356 has any particular significance

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Artillery · CONQUEST · Fifteenth · Order (exchange · Period (music · Possession (linguistics · African history and culture analysis · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History