A and all the saints, kept begging for deliverance from the hands of the Gentiles with deep groaning and tears. But God our Lord, in accordance with His inexorable will, decreed that on that very day the head of the Greeks should fall into the hands of Muhammad (and, as our Lord God decreed because of the cruel sentence against the Greeks, that He willed that this city should go on this day into the hand of Muhammad!).
May 29. Barbarus recalls the ancient prophecies concerning the destruction of the Greek empire, the fulfillment of which, according to many signs, was reserved for this very time. In the third hour before sunrise, the sultan ordered three armies, each of 50,000 armed men, to advance toward the city. The first cohort consisted of Christians whom the Turks had forced into the company of the battle; the second, of an unskilled rabble (an unrefined crowd, that is, a vile mob of that sort); the third was composed of Janissaries and the strength of the army; behind these, the sultan finally occupied his position. D And as the first of them attempted to apply ladders to the walls, they were repulsed with huge losses. Yet they were driven toward the walls by those following with such violence that they had to perish in one way or another. As Barbarus observes, the sultan had positioned these Christians in the front line so that they would be exposed to certain death, while he spared the lives of the Turks, and in order to tire out the defenders of the city with their assault, even if it were futile. This is what happened in reality, even though the second rank was repulsed with much bloodshed by the archers and bombardiers of the city. Then the third rank of the sultan, with new strength and with a shout heard far and wide, the Janissaries and the flower of the army, burst forth like lions.
Notwithstanding the prayers and lamentations of the urban multitude, especially the women, and although the defenders fought most bravely on the walls, at sunrise the Turks, enveloped by the dust raised by that great engine of war, were the first three hundred to cross the walls. But after they themselves paid for their audacity with death, and the same stratagem was repeated, finally up to 30,000 soldiers burst into the city with an impetus such as that of wild beasts, through the broken parts of the wall around the Gate of St. Romanus. Indeed, so many Turks fell in that slaughter that, if Barbarus is to be believed, 40 merchant ships could scarcely suffice to transport the corpses. The same author reports, moreover, that Justiniani was wounded, and that his shouting that the Turks were already taking the city was the cause of flight for everyone.
Once the city was captured by force, the Turks shed blood without any regard for age or sex, until they judged it better to sell those who were unarmed—among whom were the Venetian merchants who had hidden themselves in cellars—for a price. The banners of St. Mark and the Emperor were torn down from the towers, and a banner of the Turkish cur, as they call it, was substituted in their place. Therefore, when the capture of the city became known, whoever held ships in the port, and the great fleet that was present along the Hellespont, hurried to leave so they would not be frustrated of a great prize, which at that very moment in time had begun to be loaded onto the ships. Barbarus reports that the Turks affixed a small flag to every house, monastery, or church they had entered, which called back those who followed for the sake of plundering from proceeding any further. It appears that more than 200,000 such marks were affixed throughout the city, since a large part of the houses was decorated with ten such signs.
The slaughter of the Christians thereafter was such that the public streets were flooded with blood just as they are by water after a rain, and the corpses thrown into the Propontis floated on the sea like fruit. Our author says that nothing certain is known about the life and death of the Emperor, except for what some record, that his body was found among those who were crushed by the Turks entering the gate of St. Romanus. Barbarus also reports that the surviving Venetians took care to place their possessions, especially their ships, in safety. Among those who escaped with their lives...