City of the Knights of Rhodes

Timeline

1. 1309–1400Rhodes · AegeanWith papal and Venetian support after the loss of the Holy Land, the Knights Hospitaller relocated to Rhodes, expanding on Byzantine and Crusader remains to build inner and outer walls, harbors, and the Street of the Knights, turning the island into a Christian maritime fortress and base for intercepting pirates.
2. c. 1400–1520Rhodes · AegeanThe order's fleet intercepted Ottoman and Muslim merchant ships and successfully repelled Mehmed II's first siege in 1480; the city's population included Greek, Jewish, and Italian merchant communities, and the Grand Master's Palace and churches of the various langues formed a unique military-religious metropolis, a symbolic stronghold against Ottoman expansion in the eastern Mediterranean.
3. 1522Rhodes · AegeanSuleiman I besieged the city with some 100,000 troops and heavy siege artillery; Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam held out for six months with about 600 knights and several thousand militia; after breaches in the walls, the order conditionally surrendered on December 20, securing safe evacuation, and the city passed to Ottoman rule, ending the order's eastern Mediterranean headquarters era.
4. 1523–1530Crete and Sicily · SicilyAfter leaving Rhodes in 1523, the order temporarily stayed in Crete and Sicily; Charles V and Pope Clement VII granted Malta in 1530, and Malta succeeded Rhodes as the order's capital; in the 1520s the center of Christian maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean shifted westward.