Live auction - fwo_920727 - RHODES - GRANDS MAÎTRES DE L'ORDRE DE L'HÔPITAL ET DE SAINT-JEAN DE JÉRUSALEM - HÉLION DE VILLENEUVE Gros ou gigliato c. 1330-1346 Rhodes

RHODES - GRANDS MAÎTRES DE L'ORDRE DE L'HÔPITAL ET DE SAINT-JEAN DE JÉRUSALEM - HÉLION DE VILLENEUVE

(1319-1346)

Rhodes was taken from the Byzantines in 1308. When the Knights of the Hospital evacuated Cyprus, they took refuge in Rhodes and were to remain there until the fall of the island, in 1522, taken by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1530, the Hospitallers obtained from Charles V the Island of Malta as their new place of residence. In 1319, Hélion de Villeneuve succeeded Foulques de Villaret (1305-1319) first grand master of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem in Rhodes who abdicated. Hélion, Grand Prior of Saint-Gilles, was elected Grand Master of the Order at the age of fifty-six. He remained in Europe, and did not go to Rhodes until 1332. On May 27, 1346, Helion died in Rhodes at the age of eighty-three. Its arms were "Gules a band Or and a fox of the same, running above the band, on the chief sewn Azure, charged with three stars five rays of the sec". In 1346 Dieudonné de Gozon succeeded him.