Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi

The House of the Knights of Rhodes is a building site in the Forum of Augustus. The name "Court of St. Basil" refers to the early Medieval settlements, consisting of a small church dedicated to St. Basil and its convent, built in the ninth century on the podium of the Temple of Mars Ultor. From the thirteenth century, the Church and the convent went to the branch of the Hospitaller Knights of St. John. With the dispersion of the Templars, in 1312, the Roman Priory of the Order settled permanently in St. Basil. The factory house was radically altered under Cardinal Marco Barbo, nephew of Pope Paul II Barbo: the new building reused structures of so-called "Domitian Terrace". From the old building, there are the remains of a monumental fountain and a staircase (still visible at the top, from the lodge). The advance of the Ottomans and the loss of the Island of Rhodes, in 1522, reduced the property of the Order. The convent was demolished in 1930, and the building became property of the City of Rome, which provided for restoration between 1940 and '50, reassigning it to the Order of Malta.