The Tower of France

Identity

Site & dates

The Tower of France › Northern end of the Mole of the Windmills

The Tower of France stands at the northern end of the Mole of the Windmills, the breakwater shared between Mandraki, the Order's war-galley harbour, and the Commercial Harbour to its south-east. A cylindrical tower with an attached semicircular, prow-shaped outwork, it is dated by a published archival document to 1452, under Grand Master Jean de Lastic, with the outwork itself attributed "almost certainly" to his successor, Jacques de Milly. It stands at, or immediately beside, the fixed anchor point of the Commercial Harbour's medieval chain-closure -- the same chain this project's companion Statement of Significance documents at its other end, the Tower of Naillac. Having collapsed in part in the 1990s, the tower was restored in 2000-2008 under a Greek Ministry of Culture programme and stands today, within an archaeological zone now presented to the public as part of an evolving open-air museum.

c. 305 BC – Byzantine period

A Hellenistic defensive wall, discovered archaeologically and dated to shortly after the siege of Demetrios Poliorketes, underlies the mole; an Early Byzantine phase and, following the brief Genoese occupation of 1248–1250, a 13th-century Byzantine mill-building episode follow in turn — the deep stratigraphy beneath the Hospitaller-era tower documented in this Statement.

1346 – 1353

Grand Master Dieudonné de Gozon builds the 14th-century Hospitaller mole whose thickness (7.50 m) corresponds to the pier later found, in 2006, to anchor the harbour chain.

1396 – 1421

Grand Master Philibert de Naillac is credited, ‘with great certainty,’ with modifying the end of the Mole of the Windmills to receive the chain’s fixed anchorage, simultaneously with installing the chain’s control mechanism at the base of his own tower — which this document's sources place not here, but on the separate, physically distinct Mole of Naillac; see Discrepancies, in Fabric, below.

1421 – 1437

Grand Master Antoni Fluvian presides over a building phase at the mole referenced in the academic source’s account of the northern fort’s chronology; the precise circumstances of the small fort or bastion then rising at the mole’s northern end are not fully established from the evidence available.

1452

The cylindrical Tower of France and its semicircular outwork are incorporated into the mole’s fortifications, dated precisely by an archival document published by Z. Tsirpanlis, under Grand Master Jean de Lastic (1437–1454) — this document’s preferred attribution, superseding an earlier, web-sourced attribution to Pierre d’Aubusson; see Discrepancies, below.

1454 – 1461

Grand Master Jacques de Milly is credited, ‘almost certainly,’ with building the semicircular outwork at the tower’s base, continuing a building campaign that ran, on this account, continuously from Naillac through Fluvian and Lastic to Milly across roughly six decades.

1476 – 1503

Several tourism/heritage sources (not the academic attribution preferred by this document) instead credit Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson with ‘strengthening’ the tower and placing the French coat of arms ‘at its top’ — wording this document reads as a later modification of Lastic’s 1452 fabric, not its original construction.

1522

After the Order’s surrender of Rhodes to Suleiman the Magnificent, no source consulted for this document records any Ottoman-period use, alteration or reference to this specific tower.

1948

Following the transfer of the Dodecanese to Greece, the site passes to Hellenic state jurisdiction; it is administered today by the Ministry of Culture through the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese.

1990s

The medieval mole’s northern end, including this tower, collapses in part — the first and, on current evidence, only building event recorded affecting the tower between de Milly’s magistracy and the modern period.

1998 – 2013

Systematic archaeological investigation of the Mole of the Windmills begins under the Ministry of Culture, exposing Hellenistic and medieval fortification phases; in autumn 2006 the same programme exposes the harbour chain’s marble anchorage; a first restoration phase runs 2000–2008, with a further, ESPA-funded phase then projected for completion by 2013.

2012

Katerina Manousou-Ntella and Angeliki Kosma publish a dedicated study of the Mole of the Windmills documenting the tower’s 1990s collapse, its 2000–2008 restoration (with the northern cannon-embrasure restored to its original form from early-20th-century photographs), and the three separate moles of the Rhodes harbour front — the single most important new source for this document’s second revision.

2019 – 2022

A professional conservation report on the neighbouring Rhodes Customs House (built 1930s, some 15 metres from the medieval mole) independently references ‘the small fortification around the Tower of France’ while documenting the Customs House’s own restoration, continuing in parallel with the Mole of the Windmills works.

12 June 2026

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese and the Dodecanese Service of Newer Monuments and Technical Works hold the formal hand-over of the project "Configuration of an Open-Air Museum at the Mole of the Windmills of the city of Rhodes," conducted by Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni and funded through Greece's Recovery and Resilience Facility (Greece 2.0 / NextGenerationEU) — the project's own invitation, obtained directly for this document, is its most current primary source; see Testimony and Gallery, below.

Fabric

Four names for one tower

What survives › a restored tower, an outwork, and a buried chain-anchorage

Unlike the Tower of Naillac across the harbour mouth, the Tower of France survives today as a standing, restored structure.

The Cylindrical Tower and Its Outwork

A cylindrical, crenellated tower standing on a tall, stepped, prow- or ship's-bow-shaped stone outwork built largely of large, well-cut rectangular blocks, with a rectangular cannon-embrasure notch cut into the outwork's seaward face. The tower's precise dimensions and materials are not stated in the sources consulted for this document and should be established through a dedicated structural survey.

Restored, Not Untouched

The structure's present-day form is a documented, evidence-based restoration (2000-2008) of a tower that had partly collapsed in the 1990s, with the northern cannon-embrasure specifically reconstructed to its original form from early-20th-century archival photographs -- not the unbroken survival of continuous medieval fabric. This document rates Integrity accordingly as Moderate; see Assessment, below.

The Harbour-Chain Anchorage

Discovered archaeologically in autumn 2006: a massive ancient column, re-used as the chain's fixed toothing-stone ("déstra"), embedded in the thickness of the mole's western wall and standing on a marble-paved floor bearing metal clamps, its surfaces showing visible wear from the chain's own movement. The installation is attributed, with great certainty, to Grand Master Philibert de Naillac.

Four Names, One Disputed Identity

The tower is named, across this document's sources, as the Tower of France (Pyrgos Gallias), the Tower of the Mills (Pyrgos ton Mylon), the Tower of the Angel, and the Windmills Tower. This document treats all four as most probably naming the same standing structure, on the strength of shared location and building chronology -- but notes that no single source equates all four names explicitly, so the identification is this document's own reasoned inference, not a settled fact.

Not to Be Confused With Three Other "Tower/Bastion of France" Structures

A separately located Bastion of France, built around the Tower of Trabucco near the Gate of St Paul; an unrelated Tower of France at the Hospitaller castle of St Peter, Bodrum; and a tourist-platform listing that applies the Greek name for Tower of France (Pirgos Gallias) to the Tower of Naillac instead. None of these three should be taken as evidence for, or confused with, the monument documented in this Statement; see Discrepancies, below.

Discrepancies: A Document Revising Itself

This document's own first revision concluded, mistakenly, that the Tower of France and the Tower of Naillac stood at opposite ends of one mole. A further academic source, obtained for this second revision, corrects that conclusion: the two towers stand on two separate, named moles, facing one another across the harbour mouth. The same revision also reverses this document's own earlier assumption about which of the two towers survives: a convergent body of tourism and heritage sources now indicates that the Tower of Naillac was demolished after nineteenth-century earthquake damage, while the Tower of France -- previously assessed as unconfirmed -- is documented as standing, restored. Both reversals are reported here in the interest of transparency, not silently folded into a single, tidier account.

History

From Hellenistic wall to open-air museum

305 BC – 2026 › a mole fortified, lost, excavated, and reopened

The Mole of the Windmills carries a continuous, if only partly documented, fortification history running from antiquity to the present day, of which the Tower of France's own building, collapse and restoration form only the most recent Hospitaller-era chapter.

A Fortification Built in Phases

Katerina Manousou-Ntella's dedicated academic study traces the mole's fortification across a Hellenistic defensive wall, an Early Byzantine phase, a 13th-century Byzantine mill-building episode, and a 14th-century Hospitaller mole attributed to Dieudonné de Gozon (1346-1353), before reaching the 14th-15th-century Hospitaller phases directly relevant to the Tower of France.

A Fort of Uncertain Early Date

The precise time of the mole's extension northward, and the exact circumstances of the small fort or 'bastion' created at its northern end, are not fully clarified in the sources consulted; the source is clear only that this work is later than Naillac-era construction to its south and precedes the Tower of France's own incorporation in 1452. A pictorial depiction of Rhodes by De Berry, dated 1622, is cited as showing a small, freestanding fort at the mole's northern end consistent with this earlier phase.

Lastic's Tower, Milly's Outwork

The cylindrical tower and its semicircular outwork are incorporated into the mole's fortifications in 1452, under Jean de Lastic; the outwork at the tower's base is attributed, 'almost certainly,' to his successor Jacques de Milly, continuing a building sequence that ran, on this account, continuously from Naillac through Fluvian and Lastic to Milly across roughly six decades. No source consulted records any further building, repair or alteration between Milly's magistracy and the modern period.

Three Centuries of Silence

After the Order's surrender of Rhodes in 1522, no source consulted for this document records any Ottoman-period use, alteration or reference to this specific tower -- a silence in the record, not evidence of the structure's loss.

Excavation, 1998 Onward

The Ministry of Culture's systematic investigation of the Mole of the Windmills begins in autumn 1998, exposing substantial Hellenistic-period remains beneath the later fortifications; in autumn 2006 the same programme's continued research exposes the chain-anchorage device, described by Manousou-Ntella as a discovery of major importance for understanding the harbour's medieval defences.

Collapse and Restoration, 1990s – 2008

At some point in the 1990s the medieval mole's northern end -- including, on this document's reasoned inference, the Tower of France and its outwork -- collapsed in part. As the first phase of a Ministry of Culture programme to restore and present all three moles of the Rhodes harbour front, part-funded through the EU's 3rd Community Support Framework, the collapsed section was restored between 2000 and 2008, with the northern cannon-embrasure specifically reconstructed from early-20th-century archival photographs.

An Evolving Open-Air Museum

By 2012, a further ESPA-South-Aegean-funded phase had already restored the mole's western protective zone with a wrought-iron railing, created a raised wooden visitor walkway along the excavated Hellenistic wall allowing visitors to descend into the ancient wall's interior, restored the two surviving Hospitaller-period windmills for public access, and installed bilingual information panels, with completion then projected for 2013.

A 2022 Report, Still Mid-Programme

A professional 2022 restoration report on the neighbouring Customs House notes that its own restoration proceeds 'in parallel with... the completion of the restoration-highlighting of the Mole of the Windmills,' with the area planned to function as an open-air museum with organised pedestrian routes, funded through Greece's national Recovery and Resilience Facility (TAA) programme.

A Hand-Over, 12 June 2026

An official Ministry of Culture invitation, obtained directly for this document, announces the formal hand-over of the completed project, "Configuration of an Open-Air Museum at the Mole of the Windmills of the city of Rhodes," on 12 June 2026, conducted by Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni -- the clearest evidence available to this document that the conservation programme traced through its 2009, 2012 and 2022 sources has now, or very nearly, reached completion. This document has only the invitation itself, not an after-the-fact report confirming the ceremony proceeded as announced, and notes this distinction in the interest of transparency.

Testimony

Scholars narrate

Manousou-Ntella, Kosma, and the Ministry of Culture › direct testimony

Naillac's Chain, at Another Tower's Base

"To Grand Master Naillac is attributed, with great certainty, the modification of the end of the Mole of the Windmills for the incorporation of the fixed end of the harbour's chain, simultaneously with the installation of the chain's control mechanism at the lower level of the tower of the same name."

Katerina Manousou-Ntella, 'The Coastal Fortifications and Harbours of Rhodes Town,' Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, Period IV, vol. 30 (2009), p. 79; cited in the text as 'Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications.'

A Tower Dated to the Year

"...the incorporation of the cylindrical Tower of France (fig. 9, ST) and its semi-cylindrical outwork [took place] exactly in 1452, under Grand Master Jean de Lastic (1437-1454)."

Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications, p. 79, citing Z. Tsirpanlis, Unpublished Documents concerning Rhodes and the Southern Sporades in the Years of the Hospitaller Knights (Rhodes, 1995), p. 616, doc. no. 251.

Three Moles, Not One

A dedicated study locates the harbour chain's fixed anchorage on the Mole of the Windmills as standing "directly opposite the tower of Naillac" -- language that only makes sense if the two towers face one another across the harbour mouth from two distinct moles, not from opposite ends of a single one.

Katerina Manousou-Ntella and Angeliki Kosma, 'Mole of the Windmills: A diachronic archaeological site in the heart of Rhodes' tourist harbour,' Dodekanisiaka Chronika, vol. 25 (2012), p. 273; cited in the text as 'Manousou-Ntella and Kosma, Mole of the Windmills.'

Collapse, and a Restoration from Old Photographs

"...the northern end of the medieval mole, which had collapsed in the 1990s, was restored, and the northern cannon-embrasure was restored to its original form, an intervention historically documented from early-20th-century archival photographic material."

Manousou-Ntella and Kosma, Mole of the Windmills, p. 274.

A Tower Still Named by Its Neighbours

A 2022 professional restoration report on the Rhodes Customs House, built in the 1930s, locates the new building as sited "at a distance of 15 metres from the medieval mole, bounded by the front of the Ottoman perimeter wall, the small fortification around the Tower of France, and the Hospitaller pier, respectively" -- a single, incidental mention that nonetheless confirms the name's continued use by today's heritage professionals.

Katerina Manousou and Stefania Fachouridou, 'The restoration and highlighting of the historic listed complex of the Customs House of Rhodes town...', 6th Panhellenic Conference on Restorations, Proceedings (ETEPAM), Thessaloniki, October 2022, p. 904; cited in the text as 'Manousou and Fachouridou, Customs House Restoration.'

A Ministry's Own Invitation

"The Ministry of Culture, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese, and the Service of Newer Monuments and Technical Works of the Dodecanese invite you, on Friday 12 June 2026 at 18:30, to the hand-over of the project 'Configuration of an Open-Air Museum at the Mole of the Windmills of the city of Rhodes.' The hand-over of the project will be conducted by the Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni." (This document's own translation of the Greek original.)

Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Culture, Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese, and Service of Newer Monuments and Technical Works of the Dodecanese, invitation card, obtained directly for this document; funded under Greece's Recovery and Resilience Facility (Ελλάδα 2.0 / NextGenerationEU). See Gallery, below, for the image itself.

Persons & Events

Five Grand Masters

1396 – 1503 › the tower’s own cast of named figures

Five Grand Masters span the tower's building history, from Naillac's chain to Lastic's tower and Milly's outwork -- a continuity this document sets out explicitly, including the points at which the historical and the tourism-literature accounts diverge.

Philibert de Naillac, Grand Master 1396 – 1421

Attributed, with great certainty, with modifying the Mole of the Windmills' terminus for the harbour chain's fixed end; his own tower, this document's sources now establish, stood on the separate Mole of Naillac, not on the Mole of the Windmills itself.

Antoni Fluvian, Grand Master 1421 – 1437

Presides over a building phase at the mole referenced in the academic source's discussion of the northern fort's chronology; the exact scope of his own contribution to this specific site is not established from the evidence available.

Jean de Lastic, Grand Master 1437 – 1454

Built the cylindrical Tower of France and its semicircular outwork, dated precisely to 1452 by a document published by Z. Tsirpanlis -- an attribution this document prefers, on archival evidence, over an earlier, web-sourced attribution to Pierre d'Aubusson.

Jacques de Milly, Grand Master 1454 – 1461

'Almost certainly' built the semicircular outwork at the tower's base, continuing the building campaign begun under his predecessor; also credited, in the dedicated materials for this project's Armory of De Milly Statement, with the original core of the Armory in the Arsenal area during this same magistracy.

Pierre d'Aubusson, Grand Master 1476 – 1503 (tourism attribution, not preferred)

Several tourism/heritage sources (Wikipedia, kastra.eu, romeartlover.it) report that he 'strengthened' the tower and placed the French coat of arms on it; this document's own inference treats this as a later modification of Lastic's 1452 tower, not its original construction, and prefers the archivally dated academic attribution throughout.

Restoration

Excavation and Restoration

1998 – 2022 › the people and the programme behind the tower's recovery

Two modern professionals, and a quarter-century's excavation and restoration programme, bring the tower from its 1990s collapse back to the open-air museum it now stands within -- a continuity this document keeps distinct from the five Grand Masters who built it.

Katerina Manousou-Ntella, architect

Author of the dedicated 2009 academic study first identifying and dating the Tower of France, and lead author, with Angeliki Kosma, of the dedicated 2012 study of the Mole of the Windmills documenting the tower's 1990s collapse and 2000-2008 restoration; also principal author of the 2022 Customs House restoration report that independently references the tower's site.

Angeliki Kosma, archaeologist

Co-author, with Manousou-Ntella, of the 2012 study of the Mole of the Windmills; directed the archaeological research on the mole following the departure of its original excavator, Eleftherios Platon.

Archaeological Excavation of the Mole of the Windmills, 1998 – 2013 (projected)

Systematic research exposing Hellenistic and medieval fortification phases, beginning with the Ministry of Culture's 1998 intervention; the 2006 discovery of the harbour chain's marble anchorage; and, separately, the tower's own 1990s collapse and 2000-2008 restoration.

Story

The Paths of Fate

1452 – 2026 › a narrative reconstruction for visitors

Waiting to link

By the time Jean de Lastic becomes Grand Master in 1437, the Commercial Harbour's mouth has already been guarded for a generation by a chain -- fitted, the sources say, 'with great certainty' by Philibert de Naillac himself, at the base of his own tower on the harbour's far side. A chain needs two ends, and for decades the mole at the harbour's other side, the Mole of the Windmills, has carried only an uncertain, half-documented fort: Manousou-Ntella's own account admits that 'the exact time of the mole's extension further north, and the precise circumstances of the creation of the small fort... have not been fully clarified.' A 1622 drawing by De Berry shows something standing there already -- small, freestanding, unglamorous. It is into this gap in the historical record, and this literal gap in the harbour's defences, that Lastic's own tower will rise.

Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications, p. 79 and nn. 71-72, citing Tsirpanlis; see History and Identity, above.

An archive reveals

Most medieval building campaigns at Rhodes survive only in broad strokes -- a Grand Master's name, a decade, sometimes only a style of masonry. The Tower of France is unusual in having kept its year: an archival document published by the historian Z. Tsirpanlis records the cylindrical tower and its semicircular outwork entering the mole's fortifications 'exactly in 1452,' under Jean de Lastic. Two years later Lastic is dead and his successor, Jacques de Milly, inherits the work; the outwork at the tower's base -- the stepped, prow-shaped bastion that still faces the sea today -- is credited to Milly 'almost certainly,' continuing, this document's sources suggest, a single building campaign that in fact runs continuously from Naillac through Fluvian and Lastic to Milly across roughly six decades. A chain-tower system, in other words, built not by one Grand Master but passed, deliberately or not, from hand to hand.

Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications, p. 79 (citing Tsirpanlis, Unpublished Documents, p. 616, doc. 251) and p. 78, n. 69; see History, above.

What a name

For a tower named for the French Langue, the attribution is less settled than the dating. Tourism and heritage sources widely repeat that Pierre d'Aubusson 'strengthened' the tower a generation after Lastic and placed the French coat of arms 'at its top' -- language this document reads, deliberately, as describing a later modification rather than a new construction. The name itself, this document's research has since discovered, was not even unique to this one tower: a second, unrelated fortification near the Gate of St Paul also bore the name 'Bastion of France,' around the older Tower of Trabucco; and a third, wholly separate Tower of France stands today at the Hospitaller castle of St Peter, Bodrum, on the opposite shore. A fourth collision is more serious still: a currently listed tourist attraction applies the Greek name for Tower of France, Pirgos Gallias, to the ruined remains of the Tower of Naillac instead -- a conflation this document flags explicitly, precisely because a visitor searching online for 'Pirgos Gallias' is likely to find it.

Synthesised from this document's own Discrepancies section, citing Manoussou-Della, Commercial Port, pp. 185, 195-196, and Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications, p. 74; see Fabric, above.

From Excavation to Open-Air Museum

The tower's own modern story is one of recovery rather than mere survival. Abandoned and largely inaccessible until 1998, the mole's northern end was then opened to systematic excavation, uncovering Hellenistic walls beneath the medieval fortifications and, in the autumn of 2006, the harbour chain's own marble anchorage -- a toothing-stone still bearing the metal scars of a chain that last closed this harbour five centuries earlier. The tower and its outwork, found partly collapsed from a failure sometime in the 1990s, were restored between 2000 and 2008, their northern cannon-embrasure rebuilt to its original form from early-twentieth-century photographs. By 2012 visitors could already walk a raised wooden walkway along the excavated wall, descend into it, and visit the mole's two surviving windmills. An invitation obtained directly for this document carries the story to its most recent point yet documented: on 12 June 2026, the Ministry of Culture, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese and the Dodecanese Service of Newer Monuments and Technical Works marked the formal hand-over of the completed open-air museum at the Mole of the Windmills, under Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni -- a Grand Master's chain-tower of 1452, reopened, in effect, to the public it once helped to defend.

Synthesised from this document's own History section, citing Manousou-Ntella and Kosma, Mole of the Windmills, pp. 269-277; Manousou and Fachouridou, Customs House Restoration, p. 914; and the Ministry of Culture's own 12 June 2026 invitation, obtained directly for this document; see Testimony and Gallery, above and below.

Gallery

The Mole of the Windmills, Then and Now

Twelve views › the Caoursin manuscript, the standing tower, and a 2026 invitation

Assessment

Significance criteria

Nine-criteria framework › National/Regional importance

Rarity

A precisely archivally dated (1452), named Hospitaller harbour tower and outwork, forming part of a documented chain-closure system, is a rare, restored survival of a specific and datable building campaign; the 2000-2008 restoration itself somewhat qualifies the rarity of surviving original fabric specifically, as distinct from the rarity of the type and its archival record.

Moderate to High

Representativeness

Representative of the Hospitaller Order's systematic, multi-generational approach to harbour defence: a chain-and-tower system built up in stages by four successive Grand Masters (Naillac, Fluvian, Lastic, de Milly) across some six decades, with the Tower of Naillac itself now understood to stand on a separate, facing mole.

High

Aesthetic value

Photographs obtained for this document's revision show a restored cylindrical, crenellated tower on a tall, stepped, prow-shaped stone outwork with a cannon-embrasure notch -- a striking, legible silhouette at the harbour's edge; this document has not located a source assessing the aesthetic quality of the restoration itself, as opposed to its historical accuracy.

Moderate to High

Integrity

Authentically sited and evidentially reconstructed, but with a documented 1990s collapse and a 2000-2008 restoration reconstructing at least the northern cannon-embrasure from early-20th-century photographs, rather than an unbroken run of medieval fabric.

Moderate

Historical value

High historical value as an archivally dated (1452), multi-Grand-Master building campaign directly tied to the Commercial Harbour's chain-closure system, and as a documented instance of the 'Tower of France' toponym recurring independently at the Hospitaller castle of St Peter, Bodrum.

High

Symbolic, spiritual & social value

The tower's name appears to reflect the Order's division into Langues, associating this stretch of harbour fortification with the French Langue -- a symbolic dimension shared with, but distinct in location from, the separate Bastion of France, and distinct again from a visitor-facing platform's conflation of 'Pirgos Gallias' with the Tower of Naillac.

Moderate

Scientific value

The tower and outwork, together with the adjacent, archaeologically confirmed chain-anchorage (2006) and the wider phased excavation of the Mole of the Windmills (1998-2013, revealing Hellenistic, Byzantine and Hospitaller-period remains), represent an active and valuable field of ongoing archaeological research, including a documented case study in evidence-based reconstruction from archival photography.

High

Interpretive potential

Strong interpretive potential as part of the Ephorate's open-air-museum presentation of the Mole of the Windmills -- by 2012 already including a raised visitor walkway, public access to the tower's interior and the two surviving windmills, and bilingual information panels, and formally completed, per the Ministry's own 2026 invitation, within the period documented by this project.

High

Importance level

Rests on its archivally documented role within the Commercial Harbour's Hospitaller-period defensive system, its physical survival within an active, EU- and nationally-funded conservation programme now reaching formal completion, and its association with the UNESCO-inscribed Medieval City of Rhodes.

National/Regional

Statement of significance

“The imposing tower at the mole's northern end.” (K. Manousou-Ntella and A. Kosma, 2012, describing the structure identified in this document as the Tower of France.)

The Mole of the Windmills, on whose landward end the Tower of France stands, is one of the historic moles enclosing Rhodes' Commercial Harbour and Mandraki. Its fortification history runs in phases from a Hellenistic defensive wall through Early Byzantine and 13th-century Byzantine mill-building episodes and a 14th-century Hospitaller mole attributed to Dieudonne de Gozon, before reaching the Tower of France itself: a cylindrical tower and semicircular outwork incorporated into the mole's fortifications exactly in 1452, under Grand Master Jean de Lastic, with the outwork attributed almost certainly to his successor, Jacques de Milly.

The tower's site lies within the Mole of the Windmills archaeological zone, adjoining the Rhodes Customs House and forming part of an active, EU- and nationally-funded conservation and open-air-museum project administered by the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese. Having collapsed in part in the 1990s, the tower was restored in 2000-2008, with public access to its interior, the excavated Hellenistic wall and the restored windmills established by 2012, and the wider project's formal hand-over marked, per the Ministry of Culture's own invitation obtained for this document, on 12 June 2026.

A document that corrects its own earlier drafts, twice over, in the interest of transparency: an earlier revision placed the Tower of France and the Tower of Naillac at opposite ends of a single mole, a conclusion a further academic source has since shown to be mistaken -- the two towers in fact stand on two separate, facing moles. The same evidence reverses this document's own earlier assessment of which tower survives: where an earlier draft treated the Tower of Naillac as repaired and standing and the Tower of France as unconfirmed, the convergent evidence now available indicates the opposite. Both reversals, and the companion Commercial Harbour Statement's own need for correction on both points, are recorded here rather than smoothed over.

Taken together, these qualities give the Tower of France significance of National/Regional importance: a well-documented, archivally dated and now physically confirmed, restored component of the Commercial Harbour's Hospitaller-period defensive system, itself an integral part, alongside the Palace of the Grand Master, the Great Hospital of the Knights and the Military Harbour (Mandraki), of the Outstanding Universal Value of the UNESCO-inscribed Medieval City of Rhodes under criteria (ii), (iv) and (v).

National

Hellenic Republic: YA 23084/737/25-8-1948 - FEK 10/23-9-1948 (Ministerial Decision declaring the monuments of the Medieval Town of Rhodes protected under Greek Archaeological Law; subsequently confirmed under Law 3028/2002). No designation instrument naming the Tower of France individually has been located; its protection follows from its location within the Mole of the Windmills archaeological zone and the wider designated Medieval Town.

UNESCO

World Heritage property: Medieval City of Rhodes (ref. 493), inscribed 1988, meeting criteria (ii), (iv) and (v). The Mole of the Windmills, including the site of the Tower of France, forms part of the fortified circuit cited in the property's Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, alongside the Tower of Naillac, the Palace of the Grand Master, the Great Hospital of the Knights and Mandraki.

References

Manousou-Ntella, Katerina. ‘The Coastal Fortifications and Harbours of Rhodes Town’ (in Greek). Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, Period IV, vol. 30 (2009): 67-80. Obtained and read in full for this document; the principal academic source for the Tower of France's identification, dating (1452) and attribution (Jean de Lastic), and for the related 'Tower of the Mills' name and the 2006 chain-anchorage discovery. Cited in the text as 'Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications.'
Manousou-Ntella, Katerina, and Angeliki Kosma. ‘Mole of the Windmills: A diachronic archaeological site in the heart of Rhodes' tourist harbour’ (in Greek). Dodekanisiaka Chronika, vol. 25 (Rhodes, 2012), pp. 269 (approx.)-297; funded by the Region of South Aegean. Supplied directly by the project team and obtained and read in full for this revision; cited in the text as 'Manousou-Ntella and Kosma, Mole of the Windmills.' This document's single most important new source for its second revision, correcting the mole-geography of the Tower of Naillac/Tower of France pairing and documenting the Tower of France's 1990s collapse and 2000-2008 restoration.
Manousou, Katerina, and Stefania Fachouridou. ‘The restoration and highlighting of the historic listed complex of the Customs House of Rhodes town, and the design of its surrounding monumental space’ (in Greek). 6th Panhellenic Conference on Restorations, Proceedings (ETEPAM), Thessaloniki, October 2022, pp. 904-916. Obtained and read in full for this document; cited in the text as 'Manousou and Fachouridou, Customs House Restoration.' Contains a single, incidental but directly relevant reference locating the 1930s Customs House relative to 'the small fortification around the Tower of France.'
Manousou, Katerina, and Verolousi Kaseri. Restoration-highlighting study with the formation of an 'open-air museum' in the archaeological site of the eastern mole of the 'great harbour' of the town of Rhodes (title as cited in the bibliography of Manousou and Fachouridou 2022, p. 916). Not itself obtained or consulted for this document; flagged as a directly relevant further source for a future revision.
Manoussou-Della, K. ‘I. Detailed description of the fortified perimeter during the siege of 1480 -- Ia. Sea section of the fortifications -- Ia.1 The great commercial harbour of the town of Rhodes’ (in Greek), pp. 184-202. Cited in the text, and in the companion Commercial Harbour Statement, as 'Manoussou-Della, Commercial Port.' For this document, its relevant content is the identification of a separately located 'Bastion of France' (promachonas tis Gallias) around the Tower of Trabucco, at the town's northern sea defences -- distinct from the Tower of France that is the subject of this Statement (pp. 185, 195-196).
Manoussou, Katerina. ‘Le port fortifié de la Ville de Rhodes. Point de rencontre des civilisations entre l'Occident et l'Orient.’ Publication venue, volume and date not stated on the copy consulted; flagged as bibliographically incomplete. Obtained and read in full for this revision; cited in the text as 'Manoussou, Le port fortifié.' Its principal contribution is an independent, third-angle citation of the porte du bastion de France ou de l'apôtre Paul (p. 15), corroborating this document's disambiguation of the Tarsana/Mandraki-area Bastion of France from the Mole of the Windmills tower; it also records, in a passage this document has not been able to fully reconcile with the companion Commercial Harbour Statement, that the tower of Naillac ('tour du port') is 'now disappeared' (p. 8).
Manoussou-Ntella, K. (as cited in the bibliography of Manoussou, Le port fortifie). 'Le paysage culturel et les monuments symboles disparus de la ville de Rhodes.' Europa Nostra Bulletin Scientifique, no. 64 (2010): 59-74. Not itself obtained or consulted for this document; flagged as a directly relevant further source given its subject, the city's vanished monuments.
Manoussou-Ntella, K. (as cited in the bibliography of Manoussou, Le port fortifie). 'Monumental topography of the northern end of the city of Rhodes' (in Greek). Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, Period IV, vol. 33 (2012): 21-36. Not itself obtained or consulted for this document; a distinct publication from Manousou-Ntella and Kosma's 2012 Mole of the Windmills study, despite the shared year, and should not be assumed to be the same source.
Kasdagli, Anna-Maria. ‘Les Français à Rhodes: témoignages en pierre.’ In Rhodes et les “Chevaliers de Rhodes” 1310-2010: Actes du colloque, Rhodes, 28 et 29 mai 2010, pp. 59-69. Obtained and read in full for this document: a dedicated prosopographical and epigraphic survey of French Hospitallers' tombs, epitaphs and armorial buildings at Rhodes. Does not mention a 'Tower of France,' 'Tower of the Angel' or any harbour defensive tower; cited here as a checked source found not to support the harbour tower identification -- a negative but useful finding.
kastra.eu. 'Medieval Town of Rhodes' ('Greek Castles'). Accessed 2026. https://www.kastra.eu/castleen.php?kastro=rodoscity. States that the 'Tower of France'/'Tower of the Angel' was built on the harbour's eastern natural mole by Grand Master d'Aubusson, who placed the French coat of arms on it, and that it is 'preserved in its entire height.' Separately and independently states that the Tower of Naillac 'was severely damaged during earthquakes of the 19th century and was demolished by the Ottoman administration.'
oldtown-rhodes.com. '8 Wonders of the Old Town: The Bastions and Towers.' Accessed 2026. https://oldtown-rhodes.com/8-wonders-of-the-old-town-bastions-and-towers/. A tourism website corroborating that 'Windmills Tower,' 'Tower of France' and 'Angel' tower are used interchangeably for a single structure said to be built by Grand Master d'Aubusson on the mole east of the Commercial Harbour.
romeartlover.it. 'Fortresses of the Knights of Rhodes -- The fortifications of Rhodes.' Accessed 2026. https://www.romeartlover.it/Rodi2.html. Citing Belabre, Rhodes of the Knights (Oxford, 1908): states that 'St Angel's Tower,' usually called 'Mills Tower,' 'was strengthened by Grand Master d'Aubusson who placed at its top the coat of arms of France.' Also states, independently, that the Tower of Naillac 'was badly damaged by earthquakes during the XIXth century and it was eventually demolished because it could have fallen on the ships in the harbour,' dating the event to 'an earthquake in 1863.'
Spiteri, Stephen C. Fortresses of the Knights. Malta, 2001, pp. 204-218. Cited via Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications, p. 74, as the source of a comparative photograph of the unrelated Tower of France at St Peter's Castle, Bodrum.
Tsirpanlis, Z. Unpublished Documents concerning Rhodes and the Southern Sporades in the Years of the Hospitaller Knights (in Greek). Rhodes, 1995. Cited via Manousou-Ntella, Coastal Fortifications, p. 79 (p. 616, doc. no. 251), as the archival source for the 1452 dating of the Tower of France under Jean de Lastic. The bibliography of Manoussou, Le port fortifie gives this work's fuller title as covering documents 'from the archive of the Hospitaller Knights (1421-1453)'.
Mercieca, Simon. 'Maritime Caravans and the Knights of St John: Aspects of Mediterranean Seaborne Traffic (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries).' Chapter 8 in Trade and Cultural Exchange in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Braudel's Maritime Legacy, edited by Maria Fusaro, Colin Heywood, and Mohamed-Salah Omri, 158-175. London: Tauris Academic Studies. Re-verified for this document; concerns the Order's later, Malta-period 'caravan' institution and does not mention Rhodes' harbour architecture, the Tower of Naillac, the Tower of France, or any harbour chain. Cited as a source checked and found not to support the identification.
Nossov, K. The Fortress of Rhodes 1309-1522. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010.
REBOOT project documentation, WP2 Task 2.3.5: this document is a companion to, and should be read alongside, this project's Statement of Significance for the Commercial Harbour of the Knights Hospitallers (v03), which documents the Tower of Naillac, the harbour-mouth chain, and the wider Commercial Harbour landscape within which the Tower of France stands; and this project's Statement of Significance for the Tower of Naillac.
Hellenic Government Gazette (FEK). Ministerial Decision 23084/737 (25 August 1948), FEK 10 (23 September 1948), protection of the monuments of the Medieval Town of Rhodes; Law 3028/2002 on the Protection of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage in General.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. 'Medieval City of Rhodes.' World Heritage List, ref. 493. Inscribed 1988. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/493.
ICOMOS. ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites. Paris: ICOMOS, 2008.
ICOMOS Australia. The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance. Burwood: ICOMOS Australia, 2013.
Papathanasiou-Zuhrt, D. 2014. Statements of Significance. Principles, Methodology, Application for the Intensive Training Course of the Profession of Tourist Guides in the interpretation of heritage. Rhodes: Greek Ministry of Tourism / University of the Aegean, Vol. I 98 pages, Vol. II 82 pages.
Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Culture, Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese, and Service of Newer Monuments and Technical Works of the Dodecanese. Invitation to the hand-over of 'Configuration of an Open-Air Museum at the Mole of the Windmills of the city of Rhodes,' 12 June 2026. Obtained directly for this document; funded under Greece's Recovery and Resilience Facility (Ellada 2.0 / NextGenerationEU). See Testimony, History and Gallery, above.
Seven gallery images for this document were supplied directly by the user: two illuminated-manuscript miniatures from Guillaume Caoursin's chronicle of the 1480 siege (Bibliotheque nationale de France, Departement des Manuscrits, Latin 6067; source: gallica.bnf.fr), also used in this project's companion Statement for the Tower of Naillac; three modern colour photographs of the standing tower and its setting; one black-and-white historic photograph; and the Ministry of Culture's own 12 June 2026 invitation card. Individual attributions and this document's own identification of the Tower of France within each image are given in each image's own caption in Gallery, above.