Jax Stumpes: Rhodes, Greece (4/25/2025)

Friday, April 25, 2025

Rhodes was our first "Greek island," the largest of the Dodecanese Islands off the coast of Turkey.

Rhodes Old Town is widely considered one of the 'best-preserved' medieval towns in Europe.

Panorama of Old Town Rhodes from the Viking Saturn

An extension of the Rhodes city wall with St Paul's Gate on
the left and De Naillac Tower (1396-1421) towards the right

Sitting on the hill behind the city wall is the
Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Bottlenose Dolphins sculpture (2004, by Kostas Neofitou)

Virgin Mary Gate (opened in 1955 to allow
traffic through the city walls built by the Knights
Hospitaller of Saint John, completed 1457-1465)

Ruins of the Church of the Virgin Mary of the Burgh (14C)

Ice cream shoppe

Medieval Greek doorway

Seahorse Fountain replaced a
fountain destroyed in WWII

Jewish Martyrs Square with Monument (2002)
to commemorate the 1604 Jewish martyrs of
Rhodes and Kos, murdered in 1944

Hippocrates Square Sindrivan Fountain
(1934) is topped by the figure of an owl

Hmm, Hans & Gretel Ice Cream's witch?

Marine or Sea Gate (1478)

Plenty of food and water is left out for community cats

A gate that is said to separate the religious
and secular sections of the Old Town

Natural canopy at Arnaldo Gate (14C)

Former Hospital of the Knights of St John
(1440-1489) that is now the Archaeological
Museum of Rhodes (1986); above the entrance
is the bay window of the hospital chapel

During the Holy Crusades, the Knights of St John were founded in Jerusalem in 11C to provide health care to fellow knights and pilgrims. Through contact with Arabs and Jews, they greatly advanced their knowledge and became known for the quality of their medicine and hygiene.

After capturing Rhodes in the early 1300s, the Knights
of St John set up headquarters here and built the hospital
based on what they had learned in the last two centuries:
such as having individual beds surrounded by a curtain,
the patients were bathed to reduce risk of contagion, and
used advanced surgical techniques to prevent infection

Odos Ippoton/Street of the Knights (14-16C)
was where most of the orders of knights
maintained an "inn" as a residence, with each
inn representing a "tongue/language"

Rather than by nations, the different orders were known by its tongue: France, Italy, Provence, Auvergne, Aragon, England, Germany, and Spain (Aragon and Castile-León). Each group was responsible for a section of the fortifications.

The Street of Knights was restored by the Italians in the 1930s, and they removed balconies that had been added by the Ottoman Turks.

At the foot of the Street of Knights
was Tourist Information

This doorway is crowned by the coat of arms
of Fabrizio del Carretto, a Grand Master
from Italy, making this a possible Inn of Italy

It was very difficult to determine the locations
of the various inns; however, France had the
largest and most obvious inn, which is
now the Consulate of France (restored 1911)

Front door of Auberge de France with
a coat of arms with a simple cross,
which represents the entire Order of St John;
the other is the coat of arms of
Émery d'Amboise, Grand Master

Turkish fountain in a garden

Holy Trinity Chapel (1365-1374) was
built by England; it became a mosque
during the Ottoman rule but is now
a Greek Orthodox Church

The Inn of Italy

Inn of Spain (1420s)

Inn of Provence (14C)

The Street of Knights was paved with
rounded stones in a cat's-tongue pattern

Loggia of St John

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes
(14C on 7C citadel, destroyed in 1856 when a nearby
gunpowder magazine was struck by lightning, then
rebuilt 1939-1940 for the Fascist Italian government
who was then in control)

Roman statues in the garden

Roman statues in the courtyard of the Palace of
the Grand Master; how to tell Roman statues from
Greek ones: Greek statues generally depict their gods
and the men are nude, whereas Roman statues are
clothed and depict mere mortals or emperors

Mosaic flooring was brought here by
the Italians, mainly from the island of Kos

Christian symbols such as fish abound

Peacocks are a favored motif

Laocoön and His Sons (attributed to three Greek sculptors
from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros,
and Polydorus); although the Romans carried away
many Greek bronze sculptures, at least they made copies
in marble before they melted them down

Mosaic of Medusa

Candelabra and furniture

Mosaic (3-4C CE) of a thyrsus/a staff carried by
Dionysus, god of wine, fertility, festivity, among other things

This room had a chandelier made
of Italian Murano glass

Model of the Spanish galleon 'La Capitana' that
participated in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, between
the Spanish Holy League fleet and the Ottoman fleet;
note the flags of the Order of St John

The shields of the last 'tongues' of the Order of St John

Model of the Church of St John the Baptist in Malta,
where the Knights of St John ended up after the Ottomans
expelled them from Rhodes; the group is now the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a Catholic religious
lay order whose role is humanitarian assistance

Detail inside the model of the Church of St John

Buc-ee, mascot of the gas station and
convenient store chain, has traveled to
all seven continents!

Coat of arms of Victor Emmanuele III,
King of Italy 1900-1946

Clock Tower (1852)

Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library (founded 1793)

Peek inside the gate of the Muslim
Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library

Suleymaniye Mosque (1522, rebuilt 1808,
damaged by the gunpowder explosion,
repaired 1892, restored 1988-2005)

We decided against this Greek souvenir!

Kent with a "knight"

Ruins of the Church of St John of the Collachium (14C)
that was the burial place of several of the Grand Masters
of the Knights of St John; however, gunpowder was
stored in its cellars and when lightning struck the
church in 1856, the explosion destroyed the church
and much of its surroundings

Inn of Auvergne (1507)

Municipal Art Gallery of Rhodes (est 1950, building 1927)

Fountain near Tarsana Gate

St Paul's Gate ramparts

View at St Paul's Gate ramparts

Viking Saturn

Greek windmills (14C)

St Nicholas Fortress (1464-1467)

Cat hotel

A pair of deer statues standing on each side
of the entrance to Mandraki Harbor, where
it was once believed that the Colossus of
Rhodes (one of the Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World) stood; however, it is now
believed the Colossus could not have been
at the harbor, but still no idea where it was