Juan de Homedes y Coscon

Fra Juan de Homedes y Coscon (also known as Jean de Homedes) was a Spanish knight and member of the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St. John). From 1536 until 1553 he was Grand Master of the Order. During his reign the Order consolidated its position in Malta by building new fortifications in anticipation of Ottoman and Barbary Coast corsair attacks.

It was, however, also during his reign, in 1551, that the Knights lost their North African stronghold of Tripoli to an Ottoman force commanded by the famous corsair leader Turgut Reis(Dragut) and the Ottoman admiral Sinan. Homedes blamed the loss on the military governor of Tripoli, Gaspard de Vallier, and had him defrocked and imprisoned. De Vallier was later rehabilitated by Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette.

Portrayal in Fiction

De Homedes is portrayed in an unflattering light in Dorothy Dunnett's novel, The Disorderly Knights which is set in 1551 during the Dragut Raid on Malta and Gozo, and the subsequent fall of Tripoli. The novel shows him as miserly, cruel, partisan towards other Spanish knights, lacking in strategy, and extremely selfish.