How an Italian Engineer with 700 Knights Defeated 100,000 Ottoman Troops at the Siege Rhodes

Throughout the 16th century, one man stood between the Ottoman Empire and European domination, yet his name has been largely forgotten. Gabriele Tadino was an Italian military engineer whose genius transformed medieval warfare and saved Europe from one of history's greatest conquerors, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1522, Tadino defied his Venetian masters by sneaking away in the night to defend Rhodes, where 700 Knights Hospitaller faced an impossible siege against 100,000 Ottoman troops. His revolutionary innovations—from acoustic devices using stretched skins and bells to detect enemy tunnels, to star-shaped fortifications that could withstand cannon fire—turned him into a legend among Renaissance military minds. Despite losing an eye in combat, Tadino continued directing the defense, holding off Suleiman for six months and forcing the Sultan to negotiate a peaceful surrender rather than achieve outright victory. Today’s guest is Edoardo Albert, author of “The Man Who Stopped the Sultan.” We see how Tadino's expertise came at a crucial moment when gunpowder was rendering centuries-old walls obsolete and Europe's power-hungry rulers—Henry VIII, Francis I, and Charles V—were too divided to mount a unified defense against Ottoman expansion. He pioneered counter-mining techniques like "camouflets," controlled explosions that buried enemy sappers alive, and ventilation shafts that redirected the force of gunpowder blasts away from fortress walls. His genius extended from Crete's massive Martinengo Bastion, which still stands today, to the walls of Vienna in 1529, where his underground warfare tactics stopped Suleiman's advance into Central.