Did You Know...

The House of the Knights of Rhodes: the first seat of the Order

in Rome.

The ancient building – overlooking Via dei Fori Imperiali and the Roman Forum – is the result of a stratification of several centuries. In the 9th Century, some Monks began the construction of a Church and a monastery dedicated to St Basil on the area of the Forum of Augustus: part of the old wall structures were reused in this occasion, together with those of a Roman insula (a city block).

In about 1230, the entire building was then incorporated into a property of the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. When in 1310 the Order moved its main headquarters from the island of Cyprus to the island of Rhodes, its members began to be called the Knights of Rhodes. It is for this reason that their seat in Rome was then named the House of the Knights of Rhodes, a name that it still retains today.

The renovations commissioned by Cardinal Marco Barbo, Prior of the Order in Rome, dating back to 1466, contributed to give the building the appearance we still see today. In fact, the wonderful five-arched loggia frescoed inside and attributed to Giuliano da Maiano, from which the Pope looked out for the blessing of the crowd, dates back to this period.

When in 1566 the Knights moved their Roman seat to the Aventine hill – in what is today the Magistral Villa – Pope Pius V entrusted the building to the Institute of the Dominican Sisters, whose purpose was to convert Jewish girls to Catholicism. The nuns carried out extended works on the structure, based on a project by Battista Arrigoni da Caravaggio, and renamed the

Church, dedicating it to the Annunziata.

The Sisters remained in this place until 1930, when the demolition of the convent was carried out for the opening of Via dei Fori Imperiali. After that, between 1940 and 1950, major restorations were started by the Municipality of Rome, which made it possible to recover the entire house, which was in 1946 granted back to the Order of Malta. Since then, the house of the Knights of Rhodes has been the seat of the Order of Malta’s Italian Association. The building is also the operational headquarters of the Order of Malta’s Italian Relief Corps, which, with 4000 volunteers, has been working in the field of civil protection, social, health care, humanitarian and cooperation since 1970.

Inside, the Hall of Honor, the Byzantine Hall and the Sala della Loggetta, frescoed and equipped with wooden ceilings. In the underground level of the building, it is possible to admire the Palatine Chapel, dedicated to St John the Baptist. Sunday Mass is celebrated in this Church for the Order’s members in Rome and once or twice a year the investiture of the Grand Priory of Rome takes place. The part of the building that is breathtaking, however, is the loggia overlooking the Roman Forum and Piazza Venezia.