The medieval fortified palace of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller on the island of Rhodes, Greece, dominating the highest point of the old town from behind massive curtain walls and cylindrical towers. The original fourteenth-century palace served as the headquarters of the Knights of St John during their 213-year occupation of Rhodes (1309-1522), functioning simultaneously as fortress, administrative centre, and residence for the Grand Master who governed the island as a virtually independent state. The current building is substantially a 1930s reconstruction commissioned by the Italian colonial administration under Mussolini, who intended the palace as a holiday residence and as a symbol of Italy's claim to historical continuity with the medieval Latin kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. The reconstruction, while architecturally imposing with its crenellated towers, vaulted halls, and mosaic floors imported from Kos, is a significant reimagining rather than a faithful restoration of the medieval original, which had been largely destroyed by an ammunition explosion in 1856. Interior galleries now house two permanent exhibitions: one covering ancient Rhodes from the Hellenistic period through late antiquity, and another documenting the medieval city during the Knights' occupation. Mosaic floors salvaged from early Christian basilicas on Kos are set into the palace floors, and the furnished grand halls give an impression of medieval palatial scale even if the specific decorative programme is a twentieth-century interpretation. The palace stands at the head of the Street of the Knights (Odos Ippoton), the medieval city's ceremonial thoroughfare, which descends from the palace gate through a corridor of Gothic stone inns (auberges) that housed the order's national divisions. The old town of Rhodes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, surrounds the palace within intact medieval walls. Access is on foot through the old town gates.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Ippoton, Medieval City, Rhodes, Rhodes, Greece, 85100