Rhodes

RHODES. - I. GEOGRAPHY. - The largest after Lesbos (1440 sq. km.), and the southernmost of the large Sporades, situated a short distance from the coast of Caria (Asia Minor).

It is almost entirely mountainous, and its relief, which culminates in Mount Attairo (1215 m.), is arranged like a long ridge sloping with a certain regularity toward the two coasts, western and eastern, of which the latter opens into a succession of more or less ample crescent-shaped inlets, both of them cut into terraces. There are no true plains. The climate, of the Mediterranean type, recalls that of eastern Sicily, with a long dry period (from April to October) and a rainy one (average 1000 mm., but with considerable variations); winter temperatures are quite mild, and winds are frequent (and not infrequently violent).

The population (61,791 inhabitants; 43 per sq. km.) is in large majority Greek, with a few Muslims and Jews; the Orthodox confession of the Greek rite therefore predominates. The island's economy is typically agricultural; nevertheless the rural element, still attached to systems of land management and to backward technical procedures, slightly exceeds half of the total inhabitants. Livestock raising is modest in scale, with a prevalence of free-range animals (goats and sheep) of lesser demands. The soil yields cereals, potatoes, legumes and above all olives and grapes; fruit trees are also fairly widespread. Beekeeping (honey and wax) has distant traditions; silkworm breeding has almost disappeared; fishing is anything but negligible. There are no true industries, while a fair amount of craft production is maintained (carpets at Rhodes, ceramics at Lindos).

Of the inhabited centers the largest is Rhodes (51,000 inhabitants), in its appearance still rather a medieval fortress than a center of modern life, but which has seen its commerce develop greatly during the Italian occupation.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. HISTORY

R. appears in the history of the Mediterranean already in the age of Aegean civilization. The Rhodian necropolises show the Mycenaean type, the pottery has the decoration characteristic of the Cretan. To a later Doric colonization is traced the close relationship of the Rhodian dialect with the Arcadian; according to Homer, the Epolemius, a descendant of Heracles, set out from Argos to colonize R. At the beginning of the historical age the Rhodians appear in close commercial relations with the various countries of the eastern Mediterranean: especially with Egypt and Cyrenaica. From R. set out in the 7th century the colonists of Gela in Sicily.

In the Greco-Persian wars, the Rhodians placed their fleet at the disposal of the Great King: in 480 B.C. they fought at Salonica with the Persian fleet. The formation of the Athenian maritime Confederacy forced the Rhodians to join it, but later economic disputes estranged them. Against Athenian hostility the inhabitants of the three main centers of the island around 408 B.C. united and founded the city of R., which they provided with a great artificial port, and with the decline of Athens this new port became the principal harbor of the eastern Mediterranean. The struggles among the Greek cities in the 4th century determined the prosperity of R. for about two centuries. The Rhodian fleets with great care kept the seas clear of pirates and ensured the freedom of communications with Syria, Egypt and Greece; the Rhodian coinage was highly prized throughout the Levant for the quality of its alloy and its constant value. At R., through maritime activity, customs arose (Lex Rhodia) that became a reliable text and later influenced Roman Law as well. Commercial concern led the Rhodians to a policy of equilibrium amid the struggles of the 4th century. After the battle of the Granicus, the Rhodians submitted to Alexander. After his disappearance, in the struggles among the diadochi and then among the Hellenistic monarchies, R. sought to remain neutral, supporting the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria against the kings of Macedonia: in 305 they repelled the siege of Demetrius Poliorcetes. The 3rd century B.C. was perhaps the age of the greatest flourishing of Rhodian civilization. Artists and men of letters flocked to R. as to the city best suited to their activities: its schools had illustrious masters in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. In the 3rd century at the entrance of the port was erected that colossal statue of the Sun, 33 meters high, which remained famous in antiquity although it already collapsed in an earthquake around 225; its ruins existed until the Arab conquest. At the end of the 2nd century B.C. the crisis of R.'s policy begins. The Rhodian Republic judged it prudent to lean on Roman power, which skillfully exploited the friendship of R. and at first favored it, but when the Rhodians claimed to continue their game of equilibrium between Rome and Macedonia, it abandoned its dangerous friends and against them favored the port of Delos. R. nevertheless remained long renowned among the wealthy classes of Rome, the clara Rhodos, where one had to go to perfect one's culture. In the civil wars of the 1st century B.C., R. resumed its old policy: it supported Pompey against Caesar, then Antony against Octavian. The declaration of autonomy and freedom granted to it by Antony was later withdrawn by Claudius; Nero granted it again, Vespasian withdrew it. On several occasions R. was ruined by earthquakes: from the last one of 155 A.D. it never rose again.

The history of the island in the medieval age begins with the repeated attempts of the Arab governors of Syria to seize it: in 654, in 807, etc. The island was part of a special provincial governorship. The Crusades highlight the importance of the island: at R. a Venetian fleet wintered in 1099; in 1123 the Venetians, in conflict with the basileus John II Comnenus, sacked it. The port became a stopover for Italian mariners. After the Fourth Crusade and the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine governor Leo Gabalas created an independent lordship there, but later the authority of the basileus of Nicaea was recognized. In 1256 Michael VIII Palaiologos occupied the island, but he and his successor Andronicus II no longer succeeded in making their possession effective; meanwhile at R. Genoese, Greek and Turkish merchants and pirates repeatedly found refuge. In 1306 the grand master of the Order of St. John, who wished to leave the Order's provisional seat in Cyprus, accepted the proposal of the Genoese Vignolo de' Vignoli to conquer the island of R., and an expedition set out from Limisso on 22 June 1306, occupied Castelrosso, and landed on the island. The occupation proceeded slowly. But once certain difficulties were overcome, in practice the Order considered itself as proprietor of R. The central organization of the Order, for its war activity as well as for the construction of walls and castles on the island, had to draw on the coffers of the commanderies and priories of the West: financial commerce took place through the great Florentine banks, the Bardi, the Peruzzi, the Acciaioli, as in the fifteenth century through the Medici.

The policy of the grand masters aimed, on several occasions, to make of R. a true principality without succeeding at all; moreover the knights preferred to stay in the houses of the West where they lived freely rather than at R., in the convent, where life was, albeit with many mitigations, conventual and disciplined. Nevertheless, during the two centuries of their residence at R., the knights displayed a fine activity of war against the Muslims, either with expeditions of their own in the seas and on the coasts of the seas of Egypt and Syria or by participating in expeditions with other allied powers that gave the Muslims considerable concern.

Pope Clement VI would have wished the Order to abandon R. and move to Smyrna in order to be able to carry out warlike action against the Turks. The knights refused. On several occasions attacks were made on R., as in 1440 and in 1444. When Mehmed II had occupied Constantinople, he began to think about the knights of R. Only in 1479, however, did he succeed in preparing a great expedition against the island: in Dec. the first landings took place, in May 1480 a fleet of 160 ships reached R. with 100,000 men. The grand master Pierre d'Aubusson had strengthened the defenses. The number of knights present in the convent had been raised from 335 to 450.

The siege lasted from 23 May to 17 Aug. 1480. The assaults were numerous, but in the end the Turkish generals, despairing of success, abandoned the enterprise. The Turkish sultan Bayezid and the sultan of Egypt agreed to peace treaties and commercial accords. To the fortification works of R. the grand master Fabrizio del Carretto (1513-21) devoted great care, calling to R. Italian architects among whom was Basilio della Scola of Vicenza.

(phot. Alinari)

The new sultan Suleiman in 1521 decided to attack Rhodes in depth: the grand master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam urgently began preparations to resist, but neither Emperor Charles V, nor Leo X, nor Adrian VI were able to give the Order that prompt support which it needed. Suleiman's army, which began landing in June 1522, started the siege on July 28. There was talk of 200,000 men: at the defense of Rhodes there were present about 600 knights, then between mercenaries, Genoese and Venetian sailors there were no more than 7,000 men. After the attack of Dec. 17 in which the Turks managed to install themselves in the city's defensive system, the grand master resigned himself to negotiating the capitulation. On Dec. 20 Suleiman presented his conditions: the knights would abandon Rhodes within 12 days; the inhabitants had three years to leave the island. On Dec. 24 the first Turkish troops entered the city; on Christmas Day the grand master went to pay homage to the Sultan and on Jan. 1 he departed from Rhodes with the 180 surviving knights and 5,000 Rhodians who preferred exile. Rhodes remained a province of the Turkish Empire until the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-12. On May 5, 1912 an Italian occupation corps under General Ameglio landed on the island, and on May 17 forced the Turkish garrison to surrender. The Treaty of London of 1915 recognized Italy's dominion over the island, and likewise again the Treaty of Peace of Lausanne of 1923. The Italian occupation marked for the island a phase of reflowering after four centuries of abandonment: and it ended with the English conquest of 1942. After the Second World War Italy had to renounce Rhodes and the Dodecanese in favor of Greece.

Francesco Cognasso

III. THE ARCHDIOCESE OF RHODES

Already a bishopric at the end of the 3rd century, R. had become in the 7th century a metropolis of 11 suffragans, reduced in the 10th century to 10. The Latin archbishopric was founded in 1328 and lasted until 1546

Catholic cathedral, seat of the Latin archbishop.

At the Council of Florence the Greek metropolitan Nathanael and the Latin archbishop Andrew Chrysoberges of R. were present; the latter, of the Order of Friars Preachers, a Greek by birth and a convert, acquired very great merits for the cause of the Union as theologian of the Council and as pontifical legate for the execution of the Council in the East - See pl. LIX.

Giorgio Hofmann