Arnaldo Gate

The Arnaldo Gate is estimated to have, up to the second half of the 14th century, connected the main dock of the medieval port to the urban quarter of the City of Rhodes. According to relevant references in a written document dating from 1391, this particular gate was traditionally used by knightly novices (Filii Arnaldi) to enter the town. In later references, this Gate is also referred to as the “Middle Gate” or the “Castellania Gate”.
This Gate has been fashioned after the Provence style, as the case also is of the “Gate of the Mole” , aka “Gate of Agia Aikaterini (St. Catherine)”, which is small wonder, given that all Grand Masters in office at the time of construction of all such Gates (1309 through to 1373) originated from that particular French region. Two square towers on either side were meant to guard the Gate, of which the one on the east side crumbled as of the 1481 earthquake. The interior of the west tower was later rearranged into a chapel, namely that of Agios Georgios (St. George), bearing the coats of arms of Grand Master Juan Fernández de Heredia (1377-1396) and his second-in-command, Pierre de Culant.
On the southern flank of the Gate there may also be seen the coats of arms of the Grand Masters Hélion de Villeneuve (1319-1346) and Giovanni Battista Orsini (1467-1476), reminiscent of the widening of the Gate sometimes in the 15th century, at the time the seaside fortifications were being refurbished on an initiative of Grand Master Orsini. The Arnaldo Gate presently stands as the inner part of the Marine Gate complex, constructed at the time of Grand Master d’ Aubusson.