The Knights of Malta, one of the greatest of the chivalric military orders established by the Catholic Church, was founded in 1099 to guard the Holy City of Jerusalem from infidel Islamic invasion. Forced out of the Holy Land, the Order transferred its HQ to the island of Rhodes, then Malta, in 1530. It led the defence of the island against the Great Siege by the Ottoman Turks and played a leading part in Christendom's great naval victory of Lepanto over the Ottoman Navy. In this massive four volume history (bound in two volumes) of the Order, out of print since it was published in 1852, John Taafe, himself a Knight Commander of the Order, narrates its stirring and dramatic history.