Gate of St. John

The gate is roughly at the centre of the south wall and belonged to the sector of the Hospitaller tongue of Provence. It is one of the most heavily fortified points of the medieval enceinte, because it occupied a small eminence in a zone exposed to mass attack. Also, it stands out due to the visibility of over eight distinct defensive phases, without counting the underlying massive Hellenistic revetment revealed by archaeological excavation.

To reach the interior of the town the visitor crosses the outer moat spanned by a stone bridge and a drawbridge leading to the massive bastion of Aubusson. An S-shaped passage through the bastion leads to a second stone bridge crossing the older moat, ending at the former drawbridge of the old spur bulwark of master Pere Ramon Zacosta (1461-7). The way crosses the bulwark passing in front of a square tower built by grand master Fluvian (1421-37). The tower, originally detached from the curtain and open at the back, is decorated with a half-figure John the Baptist in shallow relief, accompanied by the arms of the Order and Fluvian. After the tower the road turns north to reach the inner gate of master Jacques de Milly (1454-61), once secured by a portcullis. Immediately behind this gate is located the medieval church of St. John, half-covered by the massive reinforcement of Carretto at the rear of the curtain wall after 1513. A wide staircase next and above the church leads from the roadway to the wallwalk.

Seven masters of the Hospital are known to have contributed to the development of the fortifications here, as Orsini (1467-76) also contributed a raised battery joining the tower of Fluvian to the curtain wall. The arms of  Lastic are present not only on the curtain west of the tower but also inside the latter. This complexity is also due to the fact that the new town wall started by Lastic to enclose the Jewish Quarter was concluded here by Milly, his successor, in 1456. To the left of the gate of Milly as one enters, a large bilingual inscription in Latin and Greek commemorates the event; unfortunately, it is now concealed by the top of a low wall blocking the entrance to the battery of Orsini. To the east of the gate of Milly a three-tiered battery –a late work of Aubusson– reaches down to the moat. Inside it are preserved remnants of an earlier structure which protected the southeast corner of the medieval town before the construction of the new wall.

Apart from the above, the defensive line in the area includes, to the west of the gate,

• the old wall of Fluvian, reduced to the function of an advance-wall
• a large fortified embankment of Aubusson, splitting the moat lengthwise (i.e. an inner and an outer section)
• a battery joining the embankment to the bastion of Aubusson

and, towards the east,

• the advance-wall of Lastic in front of the curtain of Milly and
• at a distance of 60 metres, a spur projection of the curtain designed to cover the gate with flanking fire.

It is therefore not surprising that about ten thousand men fell attacking this area during the last siege of Rhodes by the Ottoman Turks. The slaughter is remembered in the old Turkish name for the gate, Kizil Kapu (Red Gate); Suleiman the Magnificent chose to enter the town he had just conquered for the first time through this gate to honour the soldiers he had lost. During the exploration of the Aubusson battery archaeologists found the grave of a dead Muslim warrior buried where he had fallen, with the bullet that had killed him still in his chest.