The Siege of Rhodes, 1480

Abstract

I have written this brief account of the Siege of Rhodes by the Turks in 1480 for those who visit the Exhibition commemorating the Quincentenary of the Siege this summer at St John's Gate, the headquarters in London of the Order of St John. I intend to describe the Siege much more fully in a book on the Knights of St John at Rhodes. The main source of my knowledge is the Archives of the Order in the National Library of Malta. Two of the defenders, Guillaume Caoursin, Vice Chancellor of the Order, and Giovanni de Curti, an Austin Friar, published their own eye-witness accounts of the Siege soon afterwards. Caoursin illustrated his book with woodcuts, some of which are reproduced here. His unknown artist was clearly an eye-witness too. Known Turkish sources are scanty. That the Siege failed was naturally heralded in the West as a great Christian triumph; but we must remember that it was one of the few setbacks in the career of Sultan Mehmet II, the principal architect of an empire which brought mainly peace and prosperity to the conquered. The Curator of the Museum at St John's Gate, Pamela Willis, and her colleagues Kate Arnold-Forster, Mary Cash, Sarah Croser and Stella Dyer, have helped me to prepare this little book. I dedicate it, in his own centenary year, to the doyen of historians of the Order of St John, Sir Hannibal Scicluna.