Venice and the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes in the Fourteenth Century

In Gentile Bellini's painting of a Venetian festa a knight of the Order of St. John stands alone in the Piazza of San Marco. He is dressed in a black cloak adorned with the eight-pointed cross of the Hospitallers and is attended by a single page. The ecclesiastical and lay dignitaries of the Republic file solemnly past; but he has no part in the ceremony and his posture suggests an awareness that the presence of the Order was resented. For two centuries both Venice and the Hospitallers were among the foremost opponents of the Turks in the Mediterranean, but a deep antipathy existed between them. Allies by force of circumstance, their attitudes towards the infidels were in strong contrast and united action often became impossible. On the one side, were traditional elements in Venetian policy, the pre-eminence of trading interests, independence of the church and an opportunist exploitation of crusading ideals; on the other, the Hospitallers' alliance with Venice's greatest rival, Genoa.The Hospital's Priory of Venice was founded in the twelfth century and by the fourteenth included houses in many parts of Emilia and the Romagna, mostly outside Venetian territory.