ABSTRACT
Jacobo Curte, also known as Iacobus Corti (ca. 1449-1501[?]), was an Augustinian friar who wrote an eyewitness description of the siege of Rhodes.1 He had been born to a noble family in Pavia and entered the Augustinian Order circa 1475-1477. He went to the Augustinian convent on Rhodes sometime between 1477 and 1480. His description of the siege, entitled De urbis Rhodiae obsidione a. 1480 a Turcis tentata, was printed by Erhard Ratdolt of Venice sometime aer 18 August 1480. Curte dedicated the volume, his only published work, to his relative Giovanni Francisco de Curte or Corti, who taught civil law at the University of Padua until 1464, when he obtained the chair in canon law.2 Aer the siege, Jacobo served as prior of his convent in Rhodes from 1482 until his return to Padua in 1486. ere, he entered the university, where he became Master of eology. He remained at Padua until 1501. ere are no further records of him aer that year.
