Siege of Rhodes
Part of theOttoman wars in Europe
The 1480 siege of Rhodes.Neapolitan ships in the forefront, and Turkish camp in the background.
Date 23 May – 17 August 1480 (2 months, 3 weeks and 4 days) Location Rhodes 36°26′32″N28°13′37″E / 36.4423°N 28.2270°E /36.4423; 28.2270 Result Knights Hospitaller victory
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire	Knights Hospitaller
Commanders and leaders
Mesih Pasha	Pierre d'Aubusson Antoine d'Aubusson
Strength
70,000 men[1] 100[2] or 160 ships[1]Probably between 10,000 and 15,000 men[3] Not more than 20,000[4] 3,000janissaries[2]	500+ knights 2,000+ soldiers Probably numbered about 3,500 men[3] or 300+ knights 300 sergeants, 3,000–4,000 soldiers.[2]
Casualties and losses
9,000 killed 15,000 wounded[5]	Few

In 1480 the smallKnights Hospitaller garrison ofRhodes withstood an attack of theOttoman Empire.

On 23 May 1480 an Ottoman fleet of 160 ships appeared before Rhodes, at the gulf of Trianda, along with an army of 70,000 men under the command ofMesih Pasha.^[6] TheKnights Hospitaller garrison was led byGrand MasterPierre d'Aubusson.

The Ottomans' first goal was to capture the Tower of St Nicholas, a strategic point for the knights' defence of the two harbours: Mandraki, and the one to the east bay of Akandia. The Turkish artillery kept up an unbroken bombardment and, from 9 June on, the infantry made a series of attacks. Grand Master d'Aubusson himself sped to the aid of the garrison and the enemy was repelled after a fierce struggle.

A second attack on the town occurred on the eastern sector of the wall near the Jewish quarter, towards the bay of Akandia, which was the battle station of the "tongue" of Italy and was quite weak. The Knights and townspeople dug a new moat on the inside of the wall at this point and constructed a new internal fortification, while bombardment from the Turkish artillery was ongoing. Once again the Knights defended the town, and after a bitter battle with many casualties on both sides, the danger was once more averted.

At dawn on 27 July, the Turks launched a vigorous offensive and their vanguard of around 2,500 Janissaries managed to take the tower of Italy and enter the city. A frenzied struggle ensued. The grand master, wounded in five places, directed the battle and fought with lance in hand. After three hours of fighting the enemy were decimated and the exhausted survivors began to withdraw. The Knights' counter-attack caused the Turks to beat a disorderly retreat, dragging along with them the Vizier and commander-in-chief. The Hospitallers reached as far as his tent and took, along with other booty, the holy standard of Islam. On that day, between three and four thousand Turks were slain.^[7]

On August 17, 1480, the Ottoman fleet gave up their attempt to capture Rhodes. SultanMehmed II was furious and would have attacked the island again, but his death in 1481 put a stop to the attempt.^{[citation needed]} In 1522-23 the Ottomansbesieged Rhodes once again and captured the city and island.

Gulielmus Caoursin, vice-chancellor of the Knights Hospitaller, was an eye-witness of the siege and wrote its description in hisObsidionis Rhodiae Urbis Descriptio (an English translation exists as a part of Edward Gibbon'sCrusades^[8]). An earlier English translation was the work ofJohn Caius the Elder (printed 1481–84). D'Aubusson's own report on the siege can be found in John Taaffe'shistory of the Holy, military, sovereign order of st. John of Jerusalem.^[9]

Johann Snell printedObsidionis Rhodiae Urbis Descriptio inOdense,Denmark in1482, and this printing is regarded as, if not the first, then one of the first two book printings in Denmark.^[10]

• Our Lady of Philermos

Wikimedia Commons has media related toSiege of Rhodes (1480).

• Elias Kollias,The knights of Rhodes - the palace and the city (Athens, 1994)
• Eric Morse,Crusader knights, Turks and Byzantines (Toronto, 2003)
• Kenneth M. Setton,The Papacy and the Levant vol.3, 1984
• Erik Svane &Dan Greenberg,Croisade vers la Terre Sainte (Geneva, 2007)
• Smith, Robert Douglas and DeVries, Kelly (2011),Rhodes Besieged. A new history, Stroud: The History Press,ISBN 978-0-7524-6178-6
• Dulska, A. K. (2024).The Siege of Rhodes of 1480: Textual and Iconographic Sources for an Underwater Archaeological Search. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 1–28.https://doi.org/10.1080/10572414.2024.2314173

• 1480 in Europe
• Sieges involving the Ottoman Empire
• Sieges involving the Knights Hospitaller
• Rhodes under the Knights Hospitaller
• Conflicts in 1480
• 1480s in the Ottoman Empire
• Medieval Rhodes
• Amphibious operations
• Battles of Mehmed II

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• CS1 Danish-language sources (da)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from August 2020
• Commons category link is on Wikidata
• Pages using the Kartographer extension