Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/176

150 truth underlying the legend seems, on the whole, certain. Deodato de Gozon did undeniably destroy some noxious beast or reptile which had infested the island, after others had failed in the attempt. He thus gained for himself a reputation that gradually swelled until it attained the monstrous proportions of the above recorded fable. In reference to this subject, Newton states:—“Over the Amboise gate” (he is speaking of Rhodes) “a head was formerly fixed, which has been thus described to me. It was fiat on the top and pointed like the head of a serpent, and as large as the head of a lamb. This head was certainly on the gate as late as the year 1829, and seems to have been taken down some time previous to 1837. This is, perhaps, the same head which Thevenot saw in 1657, and which he thus describes:—‘Elle était beaucoup plus grosse et plus large que celle d’un cheval, la gueule fendue jusqu’aux oreilles, de grosses dents, lea yeux gros, le trou des narines rond et la peau tirant sur le gris blanc.’ According to the tradition in Thevenot’s time, and which has been preserved in Rhodes ever since, this was the head of the great serpent slain by Dieudonn de Gozon in the fourteenth century."

Madame Honorine Biliotti thus describes the head which she saw in 1829:—

“This skull, which was fastened over the inside of the Amboise Gate, the point of the jaw downwards, broad towards the top, and contracted near the point like the head of a serpent, seemed somewhat smaller than the skull of a horse; the lower jaw and the front cartilages were missing, so that I was obliged in imagination to replace the portions destroyed by time. The sockets of the eyes were large and round, there was no trace of skin upon the bones, which were completely blanched. In short, this skull, such as I saw it, without lower jaw or the point of the muzzle, had more the appearance of a serpent’s head than that of a crocodile.”

Villanova had not long assumed the personal government of Rhodes, before he was called upon by the Pope to join in a league for checking the aggressive designs of the Turks. The other members of the alliance were to be the king of Cyprus,