they resisted so as not to fall under the authority of the Greeks, saying that the triremes were their homes; that they should neither live nor die on land. This view prevailed; both they and the admiral remained on the shore of Pera. The guns perpetually fired balls around the Gate of St. Romanus.
May 9. By the will of the Board of Twelve, Lord Gabriele Trevisan commanded that 400 soldiers, drawn from the two triremes, be assigned to guard the land walls.
May 10. In a council held by the Twelve in the Church of St. Mary, Lord Diedus was designated admiral of the fleet, with the provision that he should exercise control over the port and all maritime affairs as he saw fit.
May 11. The same deadly toil of the guns.
May 12. The Turks, with their usual clamor and the discordant din of drums and pipes, attacked the wall around the palace; but the mercy of Jesus Christ averted the extreme danger from the city on this occasion, because, as Barbaro opines, the destruction of Constantinople, according to the prophecy of the holy Emperor Constantine, was reserved not for the present, but for a later phase of the moon. A
May 13. Lord Trevisan, commander of the fleet, landed with his soldiers to defend the damaged walls. He did not withdraw from that place until the city was taken. According to Phrantzes, between the Kynegion and the Imperial Palace, he acted as a shepherd, not a mercenary. Throughout this time, there was uninterrupted fire from the guns against the western wall.
May 14. The Turks, as we have already seen, dragged their guns from the hill of St. Theodore toward Pera, near the Kynegion gate, and placed them opposite the port, and later behind the Gate of St. Romanus, where the wall was suffering the worst damage, although the besieged strove to repair the inflicted damage with all their might. Three hundred men, mostly pyrotechnicians and archers, occupied that gate, all of them foreigners, except for the Greeks, whose pusillanimity our author severely criticizes. B
May 15. The restless explosion of the guns and the diligent repair of the damaged sections followed; otherwise, a truce.
May 16. Several Turkish dispatch boats approached the chain around the port and attacked the ships of the besieged; but suddenly, fearing they might be repelled against their will, they retreated. Mines dug by the Turks around the Caligaria Gate were discovered and thwarted by the Grand Duke.
May 17. Five Turkish ships proceeded as far as the chain of the port for the purpose of scouting, but were met with 70 shots, which, though they hit nothing, caused them to flee with the greatest speed they could muster. Yet everyone feared that the enemy would attack the city with all its forces, an attack that all despaired of being able to resist.
May 18. Throughout the night, the Turks constructed those turreted machines, also mentioned with admiration by our own Barbaro; nor could he sufficiently marvel that the Turks had accomplished in four hours what all the Christians living in Constantinople could not have done in a whole month. From this great tower, the Turks hurled an immense D mass of arrows into the city, so that those within were struck with extreme terror.
May 19. It was at this time that the bridge constructed of joined ships began to appear from Galata to the Kynegion, as Barbaro claims; according to Phrantzes, however, it took place after the ships had been transported, C putting aside the more confused chronology of Leonardo, who believes it was made before the naval battle, with a difference of a whole month. Certainly, Doukas agrees more closely with our Barbaro in this matter. The Turks did not cease to hurl bronze balls at the enemy and fill the air with their shouts; the besieged repaired the damage inflicted.
May 20. Barbaro reports the efforts of the besieged to repair the gaping walls, for which work women, children, and the elderly clergy expended their strength. Mention is also made of that huge machine that emitted 1200-pound stones, by which not only the walls, but the pavement of the city and the ships in the port were most violently shaken.
May 21. The entire host of the enemy threatened an assault well before sunrise; but after they saw the ships of the besieged prepared for battle around the great chain, they attempted nothing, but rather withdrew. They also discovered a mine dug by the Turks near the Caligaria Gate, blocked it, and slaughtered the diggers. Nevertheless, on this day, the wall and the tower near it were quite heavily damaged, and those who were inside the city had sick bodies from tireless labor and hardships.
May 22. The mine near the Caligaria Gate, having been blocked again, thwarted the hope of the diggers. But upon seeing a wondrous celestial spectacle (Barbaro calls it a common eclipse of the moon), the Constantinopolitans, mindful of the prophecy of the Emperor Constantine, saw it as a sign of imminent ruin, while the Turks saw it as a pledge of victory.
May 23. Furthermore, a third mine discovered near the Caligaria Gate and the Emperor’s palace was the reason why several makers of war machines were taken prisoner; who, after being ordered to say where other mines had been built, had their heads cut off and were thrown over the walls into the Turkish camp. On this same day, the light galley, which had been sent on the fourth day of this month to search for the Venetian fleet in the Archipelago, having escaped the traps of the Turkish ships, returned to the harbor. The city was continuously harassed by the labor of the guns.
May 24. The fourth mine, which they discovered again near the Caligaria Gate, damaged the wall not a little. Fierce shouting and jubilation followed from the Turkish camp on account of the chance battle that was now imminent. The last mine discovered near the aforementioned gate greatly terrified those trapped in the city. The war machines did not cease to emit fire and stones into the city.
May 26. Festive fires burned far and wide, and there was jubilation in the Turkish camp on account of the attack they were to launch by force the next day. The Constantinopolitans, with prayers and supplications to the Mother of God...