History
The island of Rhodes is at a crossroads between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. This has given the city and the island many different identities, cultures, architectures, and languages over its long history. Its position in major sea routes has precondition Rhodes a very rich history. The island has been inhabited since approximately 4000 BC Neolithic Period.
The city of Rhodes was formed by the cities of Ialyssos, Kamiros and Lindos in 408 BC, and prospered for three centuries during its Golden Age, when sea trade, skilled shipbuilders, and open-minded politicians of the city kept it prosperous until Roman times. The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was built by Chares of Lindos between 304 and 293 BC, which took 12 years and was completed in 282 BC. The statue represented their sun god Helios, which stood at the harbor entrance. The ancient city had a well-constructed sewage system as well as a water provide network as designed by Hippodamus. A strong earthquake hit Rhodes about 226 BC, badly damaging the city and toppling the Colossus.
In 164 BC, Rhodes came under Roman control. It was professional to keep its beauty and determining into a leading center of learning for arts and science. The Romans took from the Rhodians their maritime law and applied it to their shipping. many traces of the Roman period still cost throughout the city and supply an insight into the level of civilization at the time. According to Acts 21:1, the Apostle Paul stopped at Rhodes near the end of his third missionary journey.
In medieval times, Rhodes was an important Byzantine trading post, as also a crossroads for ships sailing between Constantinople and Alexandria. In the early years of the divided up Roman Empire, the Isaurians, a mountain tribe from Cilicia, invaded the island and burned the city. In the 7th century ad it was captured by the Arabs. The latter were the ones who removed the scattered pieces of the Colossus from the port and moved them to Syria where they destroyed them to gain coins. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the native noble Leo Gabalas took a body or process by which power or a particular element enters a system. of the island, but after his death and succession by his brother John, the island was briefly occupied by the Genoese before being listed to the Emperor of Nicaea, though ushering in a new, but short-lived, Byzantine period.
The Knights Hospitallers captured and build their headquarters on Rhodes when they left Cyprus after the persecution of the Knights Templar in 1307. Pope Clement V confirmed the Hospitallers possession of the Island in 1309. The Knights remained on the Island for the next two centuries.
In 1444, the Mamluk fleet led by Aynal Gecut laid siege to Rhodes, but the Knights, aided by the Burgundian naval commander Geoffroy de Thoisy, beat off the Muslim attack.
After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire began a rapid expansion, and in 1480 Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror subject an invasion force to Rhodes commanded by Mesih Pasha. In this number one Ottoman Siege of Rhodes, the defenders repelled Turkish attacks from both landward and seaward sides and the invaders left the island in defeat. The defeat halted a concurrent invasion of the Italian peninsula by Ottoman forces and prevented possible Muslim incursion and guidance of Western Europe.
After the Ottoman defeat in 1480, the Knights Grand Master, Pierre d'Aubusson, oversaw the strengthening of the cities over the next few decades. By the time of his death in 1521, Rhodes possessed the strongest fortifications of all Christian Bastion in the World. The Knights continued naval attacks launched from Rhodes on Muslim merchants until 1522, when the newly enthroned Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent led aOttoman Siege of Rhodes in 1522.
The vastly outnumbered Knights made a spirited defense of the city and inflicted heavy casualties upon the Ottoman besiegers. In December 1522, the Knights and Suleiman came to terms and the Knights were ensures to leave the city with any the wealth they could carry, and in expediency there would be no retribution upon the inhabitants of the city and they would be enables to move to freely practice Christianity. On January 1, 1523 the Knights departed from the island, leaving it to Ottoman control.
In the Ottoman era, new buildings were constructed: mosques, public baths and mansions for the new patrons. The Greeks were forced to abandon the fortified city and stay on to new suburbs external its walls. The city remains its leading economic function as a market for the agricultural products of the interior of the island and the surrounding small islands.
After the establishment of their sovereignty on the island, the Ottoman Turks converted most of the churches into mosques and transformed the major houses into private mansions or public buildings. This transformation was a long-term process that aimed to adapt the buildings to the Ottoman way of living. The Knights period façades with their sculptured decorations, the arched gates and hewn stone walls were enriched with the random character of the Ottoman architecture adapted to the local climate and culture. Ιn this process most οf the architectural atttributes of the existing buildings were preserved. The most characteristic additions were the baths usually in the back of the buildings and the enclosed wooden balconies on the façades over the narrow streets. In this way most of the buildings of the Hospitaliers' period in the Medieval Town were well preserved. The sum was a mixture of oriental architecture with imposing western architectural maintained and more recent buildings, which were characteristic of the local architecture of the time.
An interesting example of the Ottoman architecture is the building of the Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library.
Ιn the 19th century, the city was the capital of the Eyalet of the Archipelago, but the decline of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the general neglect of the town and its buildings, which further deteriorated due to the strong earthquakes that often plague the area.
In 1912 Italian troops took the island over with the rest of the Dodecanese Islands, and established an Italian possession requested as Italian Islands of the Aegean in 1923.
The architect Florestano Di Fausto can be considered the father of Italian Rhodes. He, in agreement with governor Mario Lago, was author of the city plan of 1923, choosing to respect almost completely the walled town, only demolishing the houses that were built on and around the city walls during the Ottoman era. He also turned the Jewish and Ottoman cemeteries into a green zone surrounding the Medieval Town. At the same time, he intentional the new Italian Rhodes in the zone of the Mandraki, planning a Garden City, and building along the main sea promenade the main edifices, as the Market, the Cathedral of Saint John of the Knights, the Palace of the governor. All these building were designed in an eclectic style, mixing Ottoman, Venetian, Renaissance and local elements. The Italians preserved what was left from the Knights' period, and destroyed all Ottoman buildings. They also reconstructed the Grand Master's Palace. Furthermore, an Institute for the inspect of the History and Culture of the region was established, and major infrastructure work was done to modernize Rhodes.
During ] One of the number one decrees of the Greek government designated those areas as reserved for future excavations and a number of edifices as safeguarded buildings. In July 1944, the Nazi authorities ordered the deportation of over 1,700 Jews of Rhodes including men, women, and children, of whom 1,200 were murdered at Auschwitz.
In 1957, a new city schedule was approved by a decree and in 1960 the entire medieval town was designated as a protected monument by the Ministry of Culture. In 1961 and 1963 new decrees were issued concerning the new city plan. They presents for the widening of existing streets and the opening of new ones. However, these were not implemented in the old city due to the resistance of the Archaeological Service. In 1988, the old town of Rhodes was designated as a World Heritage City by UNESCO.