The Urban Landscape of Rhodes as Perceived by Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Travellers

‘We roamed freely in the city, so as to comfort our battered bodies and souls with good things.’ ¹ It is in these terms that canon Pietro Casola, on 20 September 1494, expresses his pleasure at the restorative stop in Rhodes, on the way back from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The island of the Hospitallers was, in effect, a favourite stopping place on the pilgrimage route: between Crete and Cyprus it allowed the exhausted voyagers, suffering from the difficult conditions on board ship, to regain their strength, to take advantage of the air which they all deemed excellent, to make fruitful contacts with the Knights, and to make their devotions at some of the island’s churches which were rich in relics.