Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

The Palace of the Grand Master anchors the northwest corner of Rhodes’ old city, the island’s most significant monument. The Knights of St John, who held Rhodes from 1309 to 1522, raised it in the 14th century on the site of a 7th-century Byzantine fort. The Ottomans turned it into a military post and prison, but an ammunition blast in 1856 largely destroyed it. The Italians, in charge after 1912, rebuilt it in the late 1930s in a grandiose pseudo-medieval manner, so what stands today is not genuinely medieval, and its likeness to the original is uncertain. Greece took over in 1948 and made it a museum.

The structure measures 80 by 75 metres, with a southern entrance flanked by two towers and a 50 by 40 metre inner courtyard displaying Hellenistic and Roman statues. The Knights kept kitchens, stores and stables below, with the Grand Master’s quarters and ceremonial halls above. The adjacent bastion, rising 15 metres over the moat, long guarded the city and Mandraki port. The cylindrical towers at the gates, though well preserved and decorative, were outdated fortification design from the start.

Heritage data from Wikidata, compiled and verified in the Atika atlas.