Hospitaller Aesthetics: The Self-Fashioning of a Supranational Military Religious Order

Abstract

The Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem was founded in the late eleventh century to assist sick and indigent pilgrims in the Holy Land. Its mission expanded in the twelfth century to include fighting alongside crusaders in the Levant. Hospitaller activities became bifurcated, exhibiting both warlike functions and daily prayers. This paper details the deliberate self-fashioning by the Order’s hierarchy for its own geopolitical survival by means of notable books and artworks produced in several hundred Hospitaller commanderies flourishing across Europe. The decor and activities in these domiciles reinforced Hospitaller piety and helped finance forays into the Mediterranean battle zone. From the first siege of Rhodes in 1480 to the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, a carefully crafted image of the knights as defenders of Christendom showcased core Hospitaller values. Guillaume Caoursin’s Description of the Siege of Rhodes (1480), Geertgen tot Sint Jans’ altarpiece in the Low Countries (ca. 1485), Pinturicchio’s fresco cycle in the Piccolomini Library of the Duomo in Siena (1502-1507), Jacques de Bourbon’s Oppugnation de Rhodes (1525), and Sabba da Castiglione’s Ricordi (1546) are but some of the vehicles for expressing the stability of the Order through literary descriptions and visual renderings. Robust imagery was broadcast throughout the commanderies, where the knights tended to the needs of the Order while maintaining independence from secular lords and episcopal authorities.