ABSTRACT
Around 1309, the Knights of St John settled on Rhodes and remained there until the Ottoman conquest of 1522. The Order’s presence contributed greatly to the evolution of the town’s buildings and ramparts. I propose here a study of the religious topography of the town throughout the Hospitaller period, focusing on the most remarkable churches and specifying the contribution of unpublished sources. My primary purpose is to gather information scattered throughout the specialized literature and to provide new data on these buildings, which are often diffi cult to date precisely. 2 Elias Kollias stated that up to thirty-seven churches existed in the walled town (of which twenty-nine still stand), with another twenty-three churches in its immediate suburbs. 3 However, Anthony Luttrell, in the fi rst systematic review of religious buildings based on the Order’s archives, identifi ed fi fty-eight urban and twenty suburban churches up to 1440. 4 This chapter intends to provide an overview of the churches as cultural elements of the urban fabric of Rhodes and to refl ect on the architectural typologies of the surviving buildings.
