ABSTRACT
The chapter introduces the reader to the last phase of Hospitaller history, in connection with their relations with the Ottoman Sultanate, in the last four decades between the two great sieges of Rhodes in 1480 and 1522, which were launched, respectively, by the two most celebrated Ottoman sultans, Mehmed II the Conqueror and Suleiman the Lawgiver, or Magnificent in western historiography. Hospitaller-Ottoman diplomatic contacts had commenced more regularly from the late 1430s with no fixed results, but it was not until after the Conquest of Constantinople (1453) that Ottoman aspirations in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean were to manifest themselves, becoming intensified in the course of the First Ottoman-Venetian war (1463–1479). Upon the latter’s completion, Mehmed II attempted to realise his double scheme of capturing Rhodes and Italy, but his own absence from the abortive siege of Rhodes and temporary seizure of Otranto in 1480 contributed to the waning of both operations. The intermediary period between the two sieges saw a renewed unstable position between Hospitallers and Ottomans, with their relations oscillating between mutual minor-scale raids against respective Aegean strongholds, and in efforts for peace treaties which, however, could not be maintained. The final siege of 1522, directed by Suleiman himself and thus boosting the besiegers’ morale, was also described in important contemporary and later sources, resulting in the expulsion of the Hospitallers from Rhodes, Kos, and their other Dodecanese possessions in the early days of 1523, thus establishing Ottoman naval predominance on the crucial trade route between Constantinople/?stanbul and Egypt.
