Leonard, Archbishop of Mytilene and Chios

LEONARDUS CHIENSIS MITYLENÆUS ARCHIEPISCOPUS.

NOTITIA

Leonardus, from Chios, metropolitan of Mitylene on the island of Lesbos, appears to have flourished in the age of the Council of Florence, although he is not read to have been present at it. For, as Martin Crusius holds in his annotations to the *Ecclesiastical or Patriarchal History of Constantinople*, book 2 of his *Turco-Graecia*, page 187, Leonardus Chiensis makes mention in his *Expugnatione Constantinopoleos* [The Storming of Constantinople] of Scholarius, who at that time was present at the council, albeit without any formal deputation of the Greek Churches, yet as one of our own who did not think correctly; for the Greeks, upon returning home, could not preserve the aforementioned concord. From which words we infer that he did not remain constant in the doctrine and opinions of the Greek Church. Leonardus Chiensis wrote the *History of the City of Constantinople Taken by Mahumet II*, from Chios, in the form of an epistle, on the 15th of August in the year 1453 to Nicolaus V, the Roman Pontiff, which Philippus Lonicerus wished to be published in Latin among his two volumes of *Turkish Chronicles*, edited at Frankfurt in the year 1584 in octavo, to the first volume of which it is added on pages 315 to 336, in Latin only, in which language perhaps he wrote it. Gerardus Joannes Vossius makes mention of this writer in book IV of *De historicis Græcis*, chapter 19, page 443, of the last edition of 1651, at Leiden, in quarto; likewise Abraham Bzovius in his continuation of the *Annals of Baronius* for the year 1453, into which he inserted the *History of Leonardus Chiensis* mentioned above, number 6, pages 84 to 90, where, in number 7, he says that this narrative was transcribed from the Vatican manuscript codex 4137.

LEONARDI CHIENSIS HISTORIA CPOLITANÆ URBIS A MAHUMETE II CAPTÆ PER MODUM EPISTOLÆ DIE 15 AUGUSTI ANNO 1453 AD NICOLAUM V ROM. PONT.

^ALEONARDUS Chiensis, Archbishop of Mitylene, to Nicolaus V, Pontifex Maximus.

It is permitted for me to weep, most blessed Father, and perhaps, while I was being attacked by the sword of the Turks, a more healthy end for me would have been death than life. But since—

^Bnarratives of disaster are truly useful to the listeners, if those who are prostrate might rise again, just as we say that the spirits of those who are grieving for parents killed by the enemy are excited more vigorously toward vengeance. Therefore, I will tell, both weeping and groaning, of Constantinople, recently [fallen] before these who are observing—

the ultimate crisis and loss. Nor do I doubt, Holy Father, that many have preceded me, who have reported the sequence of these events to Your Holiness. ^A The report of many contributes to the whole. But since those things which are seen are explained more truthfully than those which are heard, I shall speak of what I know: and I shall testify more faithfully to what I have seen.

Since, therefore, the most reverend Father, the Cardinal of Sabina, legate for the Greek nation, had called me from Chios into his service, I—with the utmost diligence of my soul, that I might defend the faith of the holy Roman Church bravely and constantly, as duty demands—also observed the customs and nature of the Greeks, and by arguments and the sayings of the holy theologians I endeavored to understand what their zeal was, what their purpose, what [their] reasons, and what end was holding them back or drawing them away from true understanding and due obedience. I understood clearly, apart from Argyropoulos, master of the arts, Theophilus Palaiologos, and a few hieromonks, and some other laymen, that ambition had captured almost all the Greeks: so that there was no one who, moved by zeal for the faith or for his own salvation, seemed willing to be the first to show himself a scorner of his own opinion and obstinacy. If indeed they had done this not so much out of zeal for the faith and love of the Christian religion, as out of a certain feigned desire for human glory, they would have been highly commendable on this account, and their fervor should deservedly have been both an object of admiration and imitation for all those who had given their names to Christ. But in truth, it is so far from the case that they deserve praise and admiration for this, that rather their faith and constancy ought to be suspect to all on this account, since they displayed this kind of zeal not for the sake of God, but for their own glory, which they were seeking above all, even with their own nature and will resisting entirely. To such an extent that, on one hand, their conscience urged them to confess the article of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son; on the other, the swelling of pride led them astray, lest the Latins be believed to have a better understanding of the truth of the faith than the Greeks. But since neither reason, nor authority, nor the various opinions of Scholarios, Isidorus, and Neophytos could withstand the faith of the Roman Church, it was brought about by the industry and integrity of the aforementioned Lord Cardinal that the holy union was confirmed, with the consent of the Emperor and the senate (if it was not feigned), and celebrated on the second Ides of December, on the feast day of Saint Spyridon the bishop.

And so, when this was accomplished, a tempest of the Turk soon arose, and swallowed the city of Constantinople, Galata, and the other adjacent towns: so that the word of Isaiah is true, saying: "A tempest [burst forth] without any consolation." Shaken by this tempest, I too was captured; and for my sins I was bound and struck by the Turks: I was not worthy to be fastened with Christ the Savior. I remember therefore, most blessed Father, when I first sent more serious letters to Your Holiness concerning the union of the Greeks, that I said, among other things: "We, because of the future siege of the Turk, which we [expected] from day to day, [remained] between hope and despair. Hope in your awaited aid gave confidence; fear of the obstinacy of the Greeks suggested despair. Alas! What hope [was to be found] in a people hardened by serious iniquity, who for so many years had remained cut off from the head without spiritual life! How were they not in despair, how were they not rejected by God, who, with such differences, such deceptions, and such schisms, remained separated from the Roman Church, in the hardness of their hearts. For even now, having been captured, pushed out of their city, their temples, their gold, and their homes, they turn the offense back onto the Latins, asserting: 'Because,' they say, 'we made the union, and rendered commemoration to the supreme Roman Pontiff, God was deservedly indignant.'

O stubborn men! I say. If this is an evil thing, then those ancient men, Basil, Athanasius, Cyril, and the other Fathers, whom you prioritize with the highest honor of sanctity, must be judged evil, because they cultivated the one and the same holy faith with the Roman Church, the teacher of all Christians. This is not the cause, because you made the union, but because you made the union not true, but feigned. On account of this matter, God was deservedly indignant: on account of this matter, you were led into the hands of ^C your enemies by just retribution. Have you not violated the pledge concerning the union, written under a holy oath at the Council of Florence? Did you not decline obedience? Did you not hide the sentence of the decree? Did not the messengers of the most high God (O Greeks!) predict your ruin constantly? You who, like the asp, stopped your ears impiously, and did not listen to the holy Catholic Church, the mother of the faithful. Weep for your miseries; accuse yourselves; and do not condemn or blame others. The custom of the obstinate is this: to despise the holy messengers of God: just as Zedekiah and the other Jews, led away into Babylon, despised Jeremiah, who was predicting the plundering and the captivity. Certainly, Ilium would have stood until now, if Priam the father had listened to Cassandra; if the Hebrews had listened to the prophets, if the Romans had listened to the Sibyl, if you also had listened long ago to the apostolic messengers. Therefore, it is no wonder if, in punishment for such a crime, an unexpected tempest soon prevailed; which those taught by the Holy Spirit had also predicted for many years. To say nothing of the execration of the most blessed Father, Pope Nicholas I, against the depraved Greeks through that [document], 'Urgentis in senium saeculi corruptela,' etc.: that tablet, which they ascribe to Leo the Wise, constructed at the monastery of Saint George of the Mangana, hidden in ancient times in Constantinople and now detected by a mysterious sign, demonstrates the ruin. This, most blessed Father, marked out by square cells, set forth the order and succession of the emperors, to be concluded, however, in this last Constantine. And another tablet, drawn out to a great length, prescribed the order of the patriarchs. For he, illuminated by a prophetic spirit, inscribed into the tablet as many cells for the emperors to be represented, as [there were] from the first Constantine the Great, of Constantinople

^A down to the final captivity of those to come. In those days, therefore, the cells were filled, leaving one—the last—empty, in which he who was occupying the city when it perished would have been placed, had he been crowned. Morsenus, a holy man, had also predicted many centuries before that a bow-bearing host would come against Constantinople, seize its glorious port, and exterminate the Greeks. The Erythraean Sibyl’s prophecy regarding the fall of the Greeks is also clear to those who read it. Abbot Joachim, in my judgment, announced the fall of Constantinople in the *Papalista*, when he said: "Woe to you, seven-hilled [city], with truncated hands, as if destitute of aid." The Greeks call the seven-hilled city *Heptalophos*. Why, therefore, do they condemn the Latins? Why do they inveigh against us when we write the truth, against which such open prophecies protest? It was not, therefore, a union that was made, but a *Geta*-union, which dragged the city toward its fatal destruction; by which we recognize that the divine wrath matured and came in these days. God, therefore, stirred to fury, sent Mahomet, the most powerful king of the Turks: a young man, indeed, bold, ambitious, intemperate, a capital enemy of the Christians, who, on the Nones of April, before the view of Constantinople, pitched camps and tents with three hundred thousand and more combatants in a circle around the land. His soldiers were mostly cavalry, though all fought as infantry for the assault. Among these infantry, chosen for the king’s guard, were bold men who, from their elements, were Christians or sons of Christians, converted in reverse, called *Janizari*—as the Myrmidons were to Alexander—numbering about fifteen thousand. On the third day, having observed the site of the city, he moved against the walls countless machines and wickerwork hurdles woven from brushwood, by which the combatants might be shielded. This was the beginning of our confusion: that those who were to be repelled from afar by missiles and the stones of machines according to a given order, were, through the neglect of individuals, allowed ^B to approach at close quarters. Such an arrangement of theirs in constructing machines, such readiness, such foresight in their battle lines, would have been admired by a Scipio, or an Hannibal, or the leaders of modern warfare. But who, I beseech you, besieged the city? Who, if not the perfidious Christians who instructed the Turks! I am a witness that Greeks, that Latins, that Germans, Pannonians, and Bohemians, from the regions of all Christians, mingled with the Turks and learned their trade and their faith: they who, forgetting the Christian faith, more savagely besieged the city. O impious ones who have denied Christ! O satellites of the Antichrist, damned to the flames of Gehenna! This time is yours. Hasten to increase for yourselves the punishments which you will suffer eternally. ^C In like manner, a horrible bombard—though a larger one, which had been fractured and which scarcely fifty pairs of oxen could haul, had been used—was fixed against that part of the simpler walls, which was protected neither by moats nor an outer wall, called the Calegaria; with a stone that, according to my measurement, went eleven palms in circumference, they were beating down the wall with it. The wall was wide and strong, yet it yielded to such a horrible machine. Since the greater one was fractured, it afflicted the king’s mind; he ordered another of far greater form to be cast at once, which—as they say—the skill of the artisan of the consul Baron, a friend of the Calibascia family, never brought to perfection, as they strove to crush the city from every side with numberless other mediocre machines. With firearms, heavy guns, blowpipes, slings, and arrows, they plagued and slaughtered our walls and men day and night. For the enemy believed that the Christians were few, and that, being worn out by the constant battle, they could not defend the city. Therefore, it happened ignominiously that at that first engagement, the Turks found no obstacle. But day by day our men became more experienced and prepared engines against the enemy, which, however, were grudgingly dispensed. Gunpowder and saltpeter were scarce, the fabrics of war were scant; if bombards were present, they could not at first offend the enemy because of the inconvenience of the terrain, as they were covered by walls and trenches. For if there were any large ones, they remained silent so that our own wall might not be shaken; meanwhile, when they were fired into the enemy’s columns, they decimated both men and tents. For they were not cast in vain, as the enemy, when they were struck, could not dodge them. Thus the Turks fell, struck by bronze missiles and stones. Our men were also wounded: they who, sometimes exiting the rampart to engage at close quarters, both killed and were killed. The victory in this was more equitable to our raw recruits, because they went out undaunted, than it was given to the Turks. But because by evil fate Giovanni Longo the Genoese, of the lineage of the Justiniani, arriving by chance with his two large ships and about four hundred armed men, and having been enrolled in the imperial pay, obtained the command of the militia; he seemed to defend the city strenuously, and attended more vigilantly to the repair of the demolished walls: he seemed to foil the spirit and strength of the Turks. For by how much the enemy beat down the walls with the mass of a huge stone, by so much did he repair them more spiritedly, with brushwood, earth, and wine casks placed among them. By which matter the Turk was deluded; he thought not to cease from the blows of the machines, but with stronger care to steal the city through underground hollows. He ordered the diggers of mines, whom he had brought from the new brolo, to be summoned as masters. With wood and instruments brought up with skillful care, it was done as ordered, so that soon through tunnels they attempted to undermine the foundations and penetrate the city wall on all sides. But when from the foundations (O wondrous thing!) they had already tunneled under the first rampart and outer wall in amazing silence; through the industry and sagacity of Giovanni Grande, an Alemannian, a clever soldier, most learned in matters of war, whom Giovanni Justinianus, the leader of the militia, had hired as a captain, the work was detected: and confirmed by the report of the scouts, it moved the spirits of all. The Greeks, as they had long known that Barsicha, Ammi, and his father Amurat had labored in vain in previous wars to tunnel into the city, affirmed that it was impossible for this to be done. Their opinion was confounded by the evidence of the fact. Therefore these subterranean passages were [revealed] to our men ^D

and, once detected by digging, they did not damage the city: yet the tower, undermined from its foundations and resting on bitumen-smeared wooden stakes, caused us great fear. But as the matter came to light, with the enemy repelled by fire and sulfur and the passage reconstructed from the hiding-places, the fear was soon shaken off. Likewise, he ^A constructed wooden towers next to the rampart, filled with earth and covered with raw hides; from these, through [the] ditches, they secretly kept throwing in dirt, and whoever it was to make the entry easy for them, they cast it in. Then, countless hurdles woven from twigs and osiers, oblong sheds, and wheeled ladders, armored wagons, and such devices, which the Romans would scarcely have constructed against the Carthaginians. Moreover, that huge bombard, because it was not achieving anything against the Caligarea—which had been strenuously repaired—moved to another spot by the Bactatine tower, near the gate of St. Romanus, and during the day it struck [the wall] with a stone estimated at twelve hundred pounds; it shattered what it struck, and destroyed the shattered part. The ruin of the outer wall filled and leveled the moat, so that it might have been seen as a paved road for the enemy, had not a repair been made hastily from within, as in the demolition of the Caligarea; without a doubt, they would have entered the city by force. And so the Turk, as soon as he saw the demolished wall restored, said: "This is not the ingenuity of the Greeks, but of the Franks, that such resistance is made, such a battle: whom neither the countless arrows, nor the terror of the engines and wooden towers, nor the unremitting siege deters."

Meanwhile the Galatians, or Perenses, although it would have been more prudent, lest the Turk build a fort in the Propontis, to have taken anxious care to provide for arms and soldiers—yet secretly, lest it become known to the enemy who was feigning peace with them—did those things which ensured that they could not thereafter bring aid to the Greeks. So that feigned peace served the city for a time. I, in my judgment, if I am not mistaken, think that open war would have been salutary from the start for the Perenses than the feigned peace. The Turk would neither have built the fort, which was the cause of their demolition, nor would he have brought such a terrible war afterward. O, you Genoese, now somewhat tamed; but I am silent, lest I speak of my own [people], whom outsiders judge with truth. Where are the ancient, glorious Genoese, who, girded with the sword—as those who repaired Jerusalem—founded Galata? They [did so] with blood and money shed; but you, lest you spend your money and blood, with cowardice handed over that ornament of the world to the Turk, if indeed you could hand it over.

But (to continue the history) in the meantime our own forces, worn out, were despairing of the defense. For aid was not sent either from Genoa or from Venice—to whom (I say with their permission) it should have been sent. Nor was there hope from elsewhere except from God, whose wisdom—he who measured the delay more prudently imagined—was being channeled through a mystery, because infidelity, irreligion, and great sins were angering God all the more. See, most blessed Father, how just, how upright is the judgment! The Greeks celebrated the union with their voice, but denied it with their works. The magnates indeed argued, whose blood ^B by the hostile sword was already watering the ground: "Let the commemorative honor be given to the supreme pontiff, but let the decree of the Florentine synod not be read." "Why this, hypocrite?" "So that it may be erased," he says, "from the decree, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as [He does] from the Father." "Why also this, hypocrite?" "Lest the Greeks appear to have erred, if they say there are two producers of the Holy Spirit." "But why again, I implore you, hypocrite?" "Lest glory be given to him who desires to grasp all the credit for himself by his office." Scholarius on one side, and Chirluca on the other, intended at some point to bring themselves into the apostolic presence, so that they might be the ones who alone seemed to have understood the matter, and who would be praised first as the authors of such a union. For many were secretly tormented by envy against the legate. Therefore I said: "Do you permit, O Emperor, that this ambition should rend the Church, so that on account of this matter the divine wrath may justly be kindled more and more? Why are those stubborn men not removed from the midst?" The emperor seemed to acquiesce, and appointed the metropolitans—Scholarius, Isidore, Neophytus, and their accomplices—as judges in word, indeed, not in deed. For if the emperor had shaken off his pusillanimity, he would have avenged this deception of the faith. For he who pleases men, having scorned God, will surely be confounded. Those men indeed should have been restrained, who, had they existed, would not have propagated the pestiferous disease. But I do not know whether the emperor or the judges were to be condemned, for whom the rod of correction, even though threats had intervened, was lacking.

The storm of the siege therefore continuing, the city being closed, a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys from the various shores of Asia, Thrace, and the Pontus came and was arrayed against the city: among which were six triremes and ten biremes; the remaining seventy galleys were equipped with single banks of oars; there were also carried skiffs and boats full of archers for the sake of show; which, being unable to enter the port—girded with a chain and well-defended by armored men, seven Genoese and three Cretan [ships]—anchored on the shore of the Propontis at a distance of a hundred stadia. And since they dared not approach, plowing the sea from afar, they carried timber and other engines opportune for the camps. But when the Turk was dissipating the walls, already shattered in three places by the stones of his engines, he arranged, by the suggestion of a certain faithless Christian, to bring the biremes in from the hill. For that port, most blessed Father, is drawn out long and narrow, the eastern side of which was defended by chained ships and a chain; from there, entry was impossible for the enemies. Wherefore, in order to constrict and encircle the city more, he ordered that the impassable places be leveled, and from the hill, with oiled logs placed underneath, [he ordered] the biremes to be hauled for seventy stadia, which, having been raised up with difficulty in the ascent, were afterward, from the summit down the slope, moved very easily toward the shore of the gulf [to the] inside. This novelty, I suppose, he had learned from the Venetians, in the manner of the [fleet at] Lake Garda, from him who revealed the artifice to the Turks. We, thus more terrified, were planning to destroy them either by fire or by stone. But neither did this avail; those ships were of greater hurt to us, protected on every side by engines. Thus, with the port now lost ^C...

^A to him, it was necessary to guard the maritime walls and to reduce the soldiers. Therefore, not content with this stratagem, the Turk constructed something else—that which would terrify us more: namely, a bridge of about thirty stadium lengths, from the bank opposite the city, which would cut across the bay, with wine casks tied together, built underneath, and planks fastened down, whereby the army might march close to the wall, near the church of the city, imitating the power of Xerxes, who led an army from Asia into Thrace across the Bosphorus. Nothing remained, therefore, except the protection of the ships and the chain across the middle, which hindered the passage or entrance for the fleet.

^B Meanwhile, three Genoese ships, laden with arms, soldiers, and grain, arrived at our relief, leading as their companion one of the Emperor's ships which had come from Sicily laden with grain. As soon as the fleet that was on watch saw them approaching and near to the city, it rushed upon them with loudly beating drums and sounding trumpets, all of us watching, pretending that it wished to capture the Emperor’s ship. The King of the Turks, from the hill of Pera, stood watching, awaiting the outcome of fortune. Then loud shouts went up; the greater triremes pressed upon the ships; they attacked the imperial [ship], and those protected by our own fiercely resisted; they joined battle; they applied fire and engines; they shot arrows. Thus, a savage fight was joined. The ships, with the Genoese Mauritio Cataneo in command, fought back from the opposite side. There, Dominicus de Novaria and Baptista de Felliczano, the Genoese patrons of the *Balanerii*, carried on the fight arduously. The missiles of horrible crossbows were cast; and from the naval towers, countless stones were thrown into the midst of the Turkish fleet. The Emperor's ship defended itself excellently; the patron Flectanella rushed to its aid; cannons roared; a wail rose to heaven; the oars of the galleys were broken; the Turks were wounded without remission. The King, who watched from the hill, blasphemed because the fleet was perishing; he urged his horse into the sea; he tore his garments in a fury; the pagans groaned, and the whole army was afflicted. What more? The war was renewed, the fight grew strong; and with such great shafts and stones they overwhelmed the fleet, slaying so many Turks that, as the battle turned, they could not return to the shore. From the account of scouts and fugitives, we learned that nearly ten thousand fell; others, perished by sword, arrows, and engines, or pierced by wounds, rendered the army wretched. There were about two hundred vessels that had attacked the ships ^C between triremes and biremes. The King's ambition was then confounded, and his power was judged slight, in that so many triremes had not captured even one ship. The ships, therefore—thanks to God—unharmed and with not a single man lost, though some were wounded, entered the port at night with joy. The King, being greatly indignant against the prefect of the fleet, Balthoglu, granted him his life at the prayers of his Barons, but passed judgment that he should be stripped of his office and all his goods. He thought, therefore, inflamed with hatred against the ships from the hill of Pera, on the eastern side, either to crush them with stones from engines or to drive them from the chain. Having thus disposed of them, and from the western bank... ^D [to destroy them,] he strove with all the keenness of an artisan to break the ships: reporting to the Persians, because, as they had said, they were pirates whom the Emperor had hired, [and] that he wished to act against those who were his enemies. Therefore, the artificer, to whom the provision had been denied, having been brought back from our side to the Turks, tried with all the skill he could to break the ships: and by some fate, a stone from a cannon rebounding from the hill, at random hit the centurion's ship, perhaps on account of some crime, with a single blow: which, laden with merchandise, immediately went to the bottom, bringing indeed the greatest disaster. By which chance, the rest remained protected by the wall of Galata lest they be broken. It is, indeed, a wonder of God's judgment that, with fifty and nearly a hundred stones sent in, by which many houses of Galata were riddled, among thirty women gathered together, only one of excellent reputation was killed.

There were, likewise, in the port three Venetian merchant triremes and two agile [vessels] designated for the protection of the same in the port; which the Emperor had caused to remain for nearly six months for the protection of the city with great encouragement of gold; which, feigning peace with the Turk, provided no protection to the Greeks except in secret. But when signs of their flight had been apparent for some time, and because they were transferring merchandise and household goods from their storehouses, it was decreed that, by no means which might disturb the people, should those things which remained be transferred by prohibition of the Emperor; nay rather, they were to be carried back onto land. This matter provided fuel for the indignation of the Venetians; inasmuch as they were being deprived, rather bashfully, of the liberty and privileges obtained for the honor of their dominion. But afterwards, with their spirits stilled, left to their own judgment, the Venetians promised with all faith and zeal to protect the city until the end of the war.

At that time, a dissension arose between the Venetians and the Genoese at Galata: because one had reproached the other with the suspicion of flight: the Venetians asserting, that the suspicion might be removed, that they would deposit the rudders and sails of their ships in safety at Constantinople. The Genoese, indignant, said: "Even if we, with the counsel of the Emperor, for the health of the Greeks, which is the common cause, support [the situation] with the Turk by some honest dissimulation, far be it from such a crime that we should abandon Pera, the most beautiful in all the world, [our] wives, children, and treasures, which we are determined to defend until the shedding of blood. We shall keep the rudders and sails of our ships not in foreign power, but in our own, lest the glory of Genoa be of little price among you. Never will license for flight be given to us, if we keep our affairs at our own discretion." After this, all things were pacified, with the Venetians acting concerning their triremes as they had wished.

When the distress grew afterwards, it was discussed whether our men might in some way be able to burn the enemy vessels that had been introduced; and on one day before dawn, two ships having been arranged by Captain Giovanni Giustiniani, with some biremes to be carried to the bank, with fire and engines prepared: it was done, with the ships withdrawn, an order having been given that the straight skiffs, which we call *barbetas*, and the biremes should follow: this [was done] so that the muni-

munitions ships, full of wool, might be first to receive the stone-shots from the catapults. ^A But James Cocha, a Venetian, having been assigned the imperial bireme for the armed Venetian sailors, eager for glory and honor, slacked his oars and turned his ship to intercept the one advancing ahead; but soon, as he was spotted by the enemies (alas! grave fortune!), he was struck in the middle by a stone from a bombard. The bireme, with all its armed crew, was engulfed by the sea. Alas! Most blessed Father, what a grave crisis, for the fury of Neptune to have swallowed them up with a single blow! For this affair, once discovered and reported to the Turks, resulted in our men being the first to be struck, even while they wished to strike others. But what can I say, most blessed Father? Is one permitted to accuse anyone? I must remain silent. This bitter misfortune brought great grief to our people, and he drew back his ships in confusion from the place whence they had set out. Some of those who were swimming from the sunken ship were captured by the enemies, whom the impious king ordered to be beheaded the next day before our very eyes. Our men, exasperated, butchered the Turks they had in their custody in prison before the walls, in the sight of their own kin, with greater brutality; and thus impiety, mingled with cruelty, made the war more atrocious. ^B Afterward, the Turk feigned that he wished to make peace, his scouts falsely reporting that he had repented of having stirred up the war as if provoked by the Hungarians; and he appointed a herald. But this matter proved to be a fabrication: for he would permit neither the demolition of the fortress which he had built on the Propontis, nor the restoration of what he had ravaged. And what was more troubling was the perfidy of the Turk, who had never kept an oath or a treaty. Why, then, does the savage and faithless enemy seek peace? Having inquired, I learned it was the custom that, before they engage in a general battle, enemies must be offered the option of peace, so that, if this be neglected, they might find God not propitious, but wrathful, in so great a slaughter. Therefore, foreseeing his deception, we committed our salvation to God; and numbering our days in bitterness of heart and in repentance, we proclaimed that God must be appeased by litanies, sacrifice, incense, and prayer. We imposed fasts upon our people, so that God alone might deign to fight for us. But what will prayers sent to God avail if they are not from the heart, if hands are held tainted, if impious and faithless hearts persist? For our iniquities have separated us from God; our Sabbaths, new moons, incense, and sacrifices have been turned into an abomination; and the God whom we hoped to have as propitious, we have had as the avenger of our crimes. ^C Very few indeed, and among the greater number of the Greeks, were unwarlike, fighting more by nature with shield, spear, bow, and sword than by skill. The greater ones [had] helmets, breastplates, cuirasses, swords, and spears. Some were more skilled in the bow and ballista, but, inferior in number, they acted on the ramparts as best they knew and could. The Turks who clung [to the walls] more audaciously were falling. But what if a hundred had fallen in a day, when their innumerable host seemed to rise up and grow the more, the more they fell? If one of our men had fallen—especially a man of spirit—we would weep as if we had lost a hundred. The Greeks, apart from those who had approached secretly from Pera for the defense, scarcely equaled a total of three thousand. But what are we doing in the mouth of the lion? What is an ant in the mouth of a bear? What is one against a thousand? For our men were scarcely defending the city, besieged and circumvallated by sea and land, which encompassed eighteen miles. But, O the impiety of the Greeks, O the traitors of their fatherland, O the avaricious ones! The destitute Emperor, having shed tears many times over, had begged them to lend money for the hiring of soldiers, and they swore that they were destitute and exhausted by the poverty of the times—men whom the enemy afterward found to be most wealthy. Nevertheless, a certain spontaneous offering was made by a few. The Cardinal, by Hercules, applied every effort to providing aid, to strengthening the towers and the ramparts. ^D What, however, is the perplexed Emperor to do? He does not know; he consults his barons; they advise that the citizens not be troubled by the urgency of the time, but that they should have recourse to holy things. He therefore ordered the sacred vessels of the holy Church of God to be brought forth and melted down, just as we read the Romans did in the necessity of the times, and that money be coined from them and given to the soldiers, diggers, and builders, who were attending to their own business, not the public one, and refused to go to the work unless they had agreed upon their pay. Afflicted, therefore, by the urgency, the Emperor, having stationed soldiers on the ramparts, seemed to be able to protect only the city wall and the bulwark as much as he could. Thus he endures the war, distrusting the paucity of his own men, and placed all his hope in John Justinian, the prefect. Would that the fates had been favorable. Therefore, stationed next to the same commander with three hundred Genoese fellow-soldiers, in shining, glittering armor, with a few valiant Greeks added to them, the Emperor stood around that part of the walls of St. Romanus, where the battle was raging most fiercely. Mauritius Cattaneo, a noble Genoese man, prefect between the Gate of the Font (that is, the spring) and the Golden Gate, fought accurately with two hundred crossbowmen, with Greeks also mixed in, against the wooden tower covered with oxhides that had been set against them. Paul Troilus and Anthony de Bochiardis, brothers, at the arduous site of the Myriandrion, where the city was tottering, held the battle manfully with their own money and arms, with the greatest vigilance night and day, and with horrendous bombards and great ballistae. They defended [the site]—now on foot, now on horseback—with such animosity that they seemed to equal the strength of Horatius Cocles in repelling the enemies. For though neither the walls shattered by the concussion, nor terrified by the whirlwind of machines, they vindicate for themselves eternal memory. Theodore Carystinos, an old but robust Greek, most learned in the bow, and Theophilus the Greek, a noble Palaeologus learned in letters—both Catholics—together with the ingenious John Alemanus, repair and protect the shattered Caligaria gate. Contarenus, most illustrious among the Venetians, the captain of the Golden Gate and the adjacent towers as far as the seashore, manfully sustaining the weight, combats the enemies. Other Greeks likewise, distributed on their own ramparts, in battle array

and pursuing them by sea and land around the perimeter of the city. The care of the imperial palace was entrusted to Girolamo Minotto, the bailo of the Venetians. ^A The Cardinal, never absent from counsel, defended the region of Saint Demetrius toward the sea; the consul of the Catalans guarded the tower before the Hippodrome, toward the eastern side. Chirluca kept watch over the care of the port and the whole maritime region to provide a guard. Girolamo Italiano, Leonardo de Langasco, a Genoese, with many companions, oversaw the gate of Xyloport and the towers which they call the Aveniades, repaired at the Cardinal’s expense. ^B Priests and monks, stationed everywhere upon the walls, kept watch for the safety of the fatherland. Gabriel Trevisan, a noble Venetian prefect of light galleys, fought most stoutly from the tower of the Fan as far as the Imperial gate before the bay with four hundred excellent Venetians. But Andrea Diedo, prefect of the heavy galleys, with the rest, guarded the triremes rather than the gate. The ships, armed in like manner, beckoned Mars with constant trumpet blasts and wails. Demetrius, the father-in-law of the Palaiologos, and Nicolaus Gudelli, his son-in-law, presiding so that they might traverse the city, were reserved with most of the armed men as a relief force.

Thus, with the combatants—whether leaders or soldiers—so arranged, the general assault of Mars was awaited: the Greeks, terrified by this often, and lax—sometimes in tilling the fields or vineyards, sometimes in pleasures—would slip away on purpose. They would indeed feign concern for household matters, even those who seemed grave: others blamed their poverty, by which they were compelled for the sake of earning a living. When I, having rebuked them for being absent, alleged the danger not only to themselves, but to all Christians, they would reply: "What is the city to us, if our house sustains want?" So that it was a great effort to bring them back to the guarding of the wall. ^C Because of this, the enemies, catching the small number of combatants, grew bold and, with the wall demolished, would pull down with hooks the vessels which our men had placed on the ramparts. Sometimes likewise, they would pull outside and throw back with our shame, and with nets, a huge stone collapsed from the rampart by rebound, which that great bombard had hurled at the wall. But where were the guards, where were the soldiers wandering, where were the stones to hinder or repel them? O what a bad omen! What, I ask, will happen when the army rushes in like the Tigris torrent? An order was given accordingly after this so that bread would be distributed equally among families, so that for the sake of securing it, as they excused themselves, they might not withdraw from the city; lest the people fear hunger more than the sword—which some, thirsting for human blood, pretended by either hiding grain or increasing the price. But this iniquity was not the cause of the evil, but the confusion of order. Severity was absent from the prince; nor were those who had neglected obedience restrained by lash or sword. Therefore, anyone was carried away by his own pleasures, and by flatteries they softened the angry mind of the emperor by nature; deceived wickedly by his own men, that good man preferred to overlook injuries.

Meanwhile, the captain-general Giovanni Giustiniani, an observer of all fortune, as soon as he sensed from the proclamation that the Turks would soon deliver battle, set about the immediate repair of the walls, which the engine had crushed; and he requested for himself from Chirluca, the great consul duke, the city's common bombards, which he might set against the enemies. When he had proudly denied these—"Who holds me, O traitor," the captain said, "that you do not fall by the sword?"—indignant at this insult, and also because he had reproached him to the Latins, he later managed the providence of military affairs more sluggishly, and the Greeks already bore with hatred the fact that the glory of saving the city had been granted to the Latins. But the captain renewed the battle lines and fortifications of Giovanni Maurizio Cattaneo, the prefect, Giovanni de Careto, Paolo Bochiardi, Giovanni de Fornariis, Tommaso de Salvatici, Lodixio, Gatilusio, Giovanni of Illyria, and other Asiatic Greeks. The Teucer, commending his providence, said: "How I would wish to have that captain John to honor! By Hercules, he tried to corrupt him with great gifts and much gold; whose mind he was never able to bend."

^D The labor of protecting the rampart and the outwork was a care to our men; which was always against my mind, who persuaded that the high first walls should not be deserted: which, if they had been repaired at the beginning when the intent of the war intervened, whether they were split or unmanned on the ramparts due to neglect, they ought to have been repaired and guarded: which, had they not been deserted, would have brought a guard of safety to the city. But what shall I say? Shall I rebuke a prince whom I have always honored with special honor, whose faith toward the Roman Church I have known, unless he were overcome by pusillanimity? Or rather those who by their office ought to have repaired the walls? O whose souls are perhaps condemned, Manuel Giagari, long since destitute, and Neophytus, the Hieromonk of Rhodes, if I dare say, plunderers—not preservers—of the republic, to whom, as if they were guardians of the republic, or by ancestral and intestate succession goods were left, they ought to have been ascribed to the walls; they spent them instead on private comforts. The first, a monk who was a servant of treason for nearly twenty thousand florins, which they later leave to the Teucri, a treasure hidden in an urn of seventy thousand. Therefore, the city perished in such a storm by the neglect of the plunderers. But when all the inept works of the Greeks are criticized, it is no wonder if this structure, illustrious and instituted by holy emperors, an egregious monument and safeguard of the republic, was food for plunderers; which, if later they wished to repair it too late, two things were lacking: money and time; which they could have extracted more opportunely and importunely if they had intended war. But the innate ineptitude of procrastination did not allow it. Therefore, they placed all their hope in the ditches and the outwork: which, being finally lost, they were not skilled when they were squeezed into the very high deserted wall. More prudently the Hebrews, who, having lost one wall, then betook themselves to the second, then to the third, to which in four years Vespasian...

^A exercised against them, and took the siege of Titus. Word, meanwhile, was brought into the camp from scouts that triremes and some ships were being sent from Italy as reinforcements, and that John, the leader of the Pannonian army, commonly called Hunyadi, had arrived at the Danube to engage the Turk. Disturbed by this, the army split. "Why," they asked, "should the army be endangered by such great delay? We shall fight in vain against the walls," they clamored against the king of the Teucri. For although their numbers were very great, and although they had battered the city with infinite arrows, they were timid and cowed about assaulting the walls, and despaired of victory.

For Calilbascia [Halil Pasha], a consular baron of greater age to the king, excelling in gravity, counsel, and experience in military matters, and well-disposed toward the Christians, had always dissuaded the king from molesting the city of Constantinople, because, by the fortitude of its site and its fertility, it was fortified not so much by the strength of the Greeks as of the Latins, and was impregnable, having withstood the wars of ancestors and father for many years; and, what was worse, because, provoked by injury to it, all Christian kings and princes could easily be incited to protect it. "Do you, therefore, O King," he said, "grant peace to yours; do not make enemies for yourself of the neighboring Genoese and Venetians, who will always be of service to you, nor provoke the wrath of the Christians against your people. Your power is very great; you make it greater through peace than through war. For the end of war is uncertain, and adversity is often more frequent than prosperity."

Zaganus the younger, the second consular baron, an enemy of the Christians and then especially an emulator of Calilbascia, persuaded the king to wage war against the Greeks—who held little power, and whose walls were such that they themselves could be equal to battering them with machines—arguing that against the king his own power was so great that no nation could withstand it, while the Greeks, on the other hand, possessed no great number of soldiers and were already broken by long fatigue, and, expecting no aid from the Italians, were easily to be conquered. Nor should the king’s mind be turned back by that voice of Calilbascia, which had been fabricated: the Genoese were torn by dissension, the Venetians were oppressed by the Duke of Milan, and would allow no aid. Thuracan, prince of the Thracian militia, not daring to commend ^B Calilbascia’s proposal, urged the king toward war. The eunuch, the third consular baron, confirmed these words. Therefore the younger leaders of the war said: "O King, who is the destroyer of our race that strikes fear into us? It behooves our invincible prince both to think and to attempt great things, and to bear every outcome most magnificently. Change, therefore, Zagan, the day of the war; arrange the army; for, by the favor of the gods, you shall obtain the glory of victory." Emboldened by these words, the king said: "Fortune shall be attempted. Is the power of the Macedonian greater than mine, to whom the world yielded with a smaller army? Who of my progenitors, or grandfather, or great-grandfather, with such power and such machines, as I, besieged this city? Appoint, Zagan, the day of the battle, arrange the army; Peram [Pera], lest reinforcements be brought to the enemies; surround with walls; and dispose of all things pertaining to warfare with all maturity."

And so, when Calilbascia senior, the consular, learned of the counsel of Zagan, his emulator, having pleased the king, and that the contest had been determined, he secretly, through very faithful messengers, as a friend, denounced all things to the Emperor; and he urged him not to stand in fear of the madness of a drunken adolescent, nor be terrified by the threats of those who had feared more, nor be stirred by an unlearned multitude: let the guards be vigilant and await the fight with perseverance. Frequent letters were brought to the Emperor from Calilbascia. Therefore, it was proclaimed in the camp by edict that on the fourth day before the Kalends of May, namely Tuesday, with three preceding days on which they should kindle lights to God, invoke God, and abstain for the whole day, all should be prepared for the battle: intending to give general combat to the Christians; and that, by the voice of the crier, by the will of the King, the city was donated to the soldiers for three days of plunder. And the king swore by the immortal God, and by the four thousand prophets, and by Mahomet, and by the soul of his father, and by his children, and by the sword with which he was girded, that all the pillage, and every kind of human being of both sexes, and likewise every treasure and substance of the city, was freely granted to the soldiers; and that he would by no means violate what he swore. ^C O, if you had heard the voices raised to heaven (*Illala, Illala, Mahomet Russolalla*, which means that God is and always will be, and Mahomet is his servant), you would have been vehemently astonished. And so it was done: for three days they kindled lights to God, they fasted, tasting nothing during the day until night: rejoicing together, feasting together, they greeted each other with kisses as if about to go to the underworld on the day of the conflict. We, admiring so great a religion, prayed to God, the propitiator, with profuse tears, as, compelled by heart, we carried the sacred images in procession through the wall and the city, with multitudes of women and men following on bare feet; and we prayed with penitence of heart that the Lord would not allow his inheritance to be demolished, and that He would deem it worthy to extend His right hand to His faithful in such a struggle, who alone ^D is God, and no other can fight for the Christians. And so, placing all our hope in God, we awaited the appointed day of the conflict, encouraged more vigorously; on account of which, having called together the senate, the barons, the captains of war, and all the fellow soldiers by the Emperor, such a speech was held: "Since, noble men, illustrious leaders of the militia, and you, most Christian fellow soldiers, we see the hour of conflict approaching, I have proposed that you be gathered in this place, so that you may clearly understand that your constancy is to be confirmed more and more, as you who have always gloriously fought against Christ's enemies, now, the city of your fatherland and the whole world, most renowned, which the unfaithful and envious Teucri has straitened for fifty-two days, with your..."

^A high spirits you must sustain, and let no one recoil; for the whole force must be exercised in the protection of God and in your arms with swords brandished and swung against the enemy. I know that that ignorant multitude will, according to their custom, join battle with great howls and infinite arrows from afar, attacking not our persons, whom I see standing here strenuously armed, but the wall, our breastplates, and shields. Therefore, you must not, like horses which, when they fought against the Romans, the Persians wanted to terrify with the untold horror of elephants, be dismayed or put to flight by their howls, but rather be encouraged to resist more constantly like heroes. For beasts are put to flight by beasts; you, who are magnanimous men, will manfully sustain those beasts, and against them, as if against wild boars, you will fix your spears and points, so that they may understand that it is with the masters of animals, not with animals, that they are going to battle. You know that the impious and faithless enemy has unjustly disturbed our peace; he has violated the oath and treaty sworn between us; he killed our colonists at harvest time; he depopulated the colony; he built a fortress in the Propontis as if to devour the Christians, and he encircled Galata under a pretense of peace. He now threatens to take the city of Constantine the Great, your fatherland, the refuge and aid of Christians, and the protection of all Greeks: and to profane the sacred temples of God with horse stables. O my barons, O brothers, O sons, take care to defend the eternal honor of Christians. And you, ^B Genoese, men indeed of great heart and renowned, who have triumphed in infinite victories, who have always protected this city, your mother, in many struggles against the Turks, come, act, and manfully show your strength and courage against them. O Venetians, most powerful men, by whose sword the blood of the Turks is frequently shed, and who, many times over, by our Flordanus, the most excellent prefect of our fleet, consign so many galleys and so many souls of the infidels to the infernal regions, and who have adorned this city of yours with noble and great men, lift up your high spirits for the struggle. And you, fellow soldiers, showing all obedience to your commanders, understand that this day is the day of your glory: in which, if you shed a drop of blood, you shall prepare for yourselves a crown of martyrdom and immortal glory." Having finished the speech, the whole company of Christians vowed to have a constant spirit. The Emperor repeated: "Be therefore all ready in act and virtue for tomorrow, when, God favoring, as we hope, we shall obtain victory." Encouraged thereafter, the Greeks, who at first were shrinking from war as if in fear, and confirmed in virtue, having put private matters behind them, conspired constantly and eagerly for the common salvation; and having stationed their men through captains, dukes, tribunes, centurions, and decurions at the bulwarks, in the night that preceded Mars, with greatest watch under the rampart, at the gates of the city, so that no one might ^C retreat, with the gates closed, they spent the night. Meanwhile, the Teucri prepared machines, and carried up the wagons; they moved up the rotating scaling ladders to the rampart. The fleet, moreover, was arranged to surround the port and the city. A bridge was applied near the bank of the city: and all engines were prepared more pressingly, having set over them at night those who were less robust and less learned, so that when the light came, the more robust soldiers would be fresh. The struggle began; our men resisted with great spirit; they repelled the enemies with machines and ballistae; and on that side they were proportionately slain. The shadowed night was pulled into light, with our side triumphing. And while the stars yielded, and Lucifer preceded the rising of Phoebus, with trumpets sounding on both sides, with drums beating, and with the most clamorous shouts sent forth, "Illala, Illala," shouting for Mars, the army arose gathered in a circle. Therefore at one hour they invaded the city by land and sea. First they cast the machines; they sent forth arrows darkening the sky. In return, our men sent down invisible missiles; they threw cannonballs into the mass. The army was cut by the horrible resistance of the Christians. Then cries were made to heaven, standards were more eagerly unfurled; O wondrous beasts! The army was consumed, and with immeasurable audacity, they presumed to enter the rampart. The Turks fell, overwhelmed by stones, many succumbed to death, and trampling one another, they attempted to climb the walls through the ruins. They were indeed strenuously repelled by our men, but many of our men were wounded and declined the fight. Captain John stood; the others stood at their battlements. The dukes subordinate to the captain helped the city. The Emperor said: "Come, brave men! The army of the enemy is already being loosened, the crown of victory is surely given to us. God is with us; wage a constant battle." Among these things, by the evil fate of the city, alas! John Justiniani was struck by an arrow under the armpit: who soon, an inexperienced youth, terrified by the shedding of his own blood, was shaken by the fear of losing his life, and lest the fighters, who were unaware that he was wounded, should have their virtue broken, he departed from the battle line to seek a physician. Had he substituted another in his place, the salvation of the fatherland would not have perished. Meanwhile, they waged an arduous battle. The Emperor, as he saw the captain missing, groaning, inquired where he had gone. Our men, realizing they were without a leader, began to retreat from their positions. The Teucri gathered strength; horror was struck into our men. For ^D all desired with longing to know from that dangerous place what had happened; which, by the negligence of the officers, who were supposed to report everything that had either turned out badly or well, was omitted. That bitter war, which they had watched from afar with great silence, terrified them. Our men were therefore very fatigued: and they abandoned the wall they had repaired, which had been broken, for a little while due to the pressure of the enemies. Observing this, the Teucri judged that because of the filling which the collapsed ruin had made, they could pass by an easy path: "It must be rushed, therefore," they said, and like an impetuous whirlwind, they ascended the walls in one onslaught; soon fixing their standards on the walls, with joyful...

^A acclamation they proclaim victory, they fight with the sword, and as much as they are able, they strive with all their strength either to exterminate our people or to subjugate them. The unhappy Emperor, when he saw the captain in despair, said, "Woe is me! Is the city perishing? O unfortunate fate! Stop, I beg you, captain. For your flight incites others to flee. It is not a mortal wound; endure the pain, and stand like a man, as you promised." But he, forgetful of salvation, glory, and himself, showed as much cowardice thereafter as he had shown high-mindedness before. For he ought, if he could bear the pain of the wound, not to have retreated, if he was a man; or at least to have substituted another who would stand in his place.

Because of this, the spirits of all the fellow-soldiers are broken, their strength is blunted, and they follow the captain as he flees, lest they perish. "Give the key of the gate to my attendant," said the captain, through which, once opened, they hasten to pass with great ^B crowding. Once the gate was opened, the captain fled to Pera, and later, sailing to Chios, he made a shameful exodus, whether from his wound or his sorrow. The Emperor, moreover, so as not to be captured by the enemies, said, "Is there anyone here, a brave young recruit, for the sake of God, so that his majesty does not succumb to cunning men, who might run me through with my own sword?" Meanwhile, Theophilus Palaeologus, a Catholic man, said, "Since the city is already lost, it is not right for me to live," and standing for some time against the weight of the Turks and fighting, he was cut down with an axe. Likewise, John the Illyrian Slav, opposing himself like a Hercules, first slew many, then ended his life by a hostile sword. Afterward, our men, pressing upon one another to enter the gate, perished. Supported by whom, the Emperor fell and rose, but relapsed, and in the crush the prince of the fatherland departed ^C from this life. Thus, of our Latins and Greeks, about eight hundred perished, trampling one another at the exit of the gate. Then the Turks, running down the high wall, pelted those they could from above with stones, and a wedge of them, with one voice descending through the outer wall, drove all our men into flight. Hearing the rumor and the loss from those fleeing, Paul and Troilus Bochiardi, Latin men, citizens of the city, went against the enemies with some brave Greeks, mounted on Latin horses. The Turks, perhaps thinking them a greater number than they were, turned their backs. Paul urged his horse toward a Turk, and running one through with a lance, turned the others to flight. But when they were overwhelmed from above with stones, he said to Troilus, "Ha! The city has perished, and we, easily surrounded by the multitude of the enemies, shall lose the hope of life." While he was saying this, struck on the head by an axe, with blood spilling, he fled together with his brother to Galata. O wonderful event! O stupor! ^D Phoebus has not yet traversed the hemisphere, and the whole city is seized by the pagans for plunder. Quickly, therefore, all the foot soldiers run down, and they strike with the sword those who resist, [and] slaughter the weak, the aged, the leprous, and the infirm. They spare those who submit. Entering the admirable temple of most holy Sophia, which not even Solomon’s equals, the profane and treacherous [Turks] have no reverence for the holy altars; rather, they exterminate them; they gouge out the eyes of the saints; and sacrilegious hands tear or scatter the relics of the saints. Soon they usurp the holy vessels of God, and pack the silver and gold of the holy images, as well as the sacred vessels, into bags.

A cry and wailing goes up to heaven; every sex, every man, all gold, all bronze, all property, and all the substance of the city is turned into plunder. They break open cabinets with axes; they dig up the floors for treasures; these are found in such great quantities, both new and old, that there is no city since the beginning of time that flowed with such riches, and all these came into their hands. O Greeks, now miserable and wretched, you who feigned poverty, behold, the treasures you denied for the defense of the city have now come to light! Therefore, for three days they leave the city, having been pillaged and dedicated to the rule of the Turkish King, quite deserted. All substance and plunder is brought to the tents, and all the Christians, up to sixty thousand, are captured in bonds; crosses torn from the tops of temples and from walls are trampled underfoot; women are violated; virgins are deflowered; young men are stained with filth; nuns and even the remaining women who appear are defiled with lechery. O my God, how angry You seem! How unmercifully You have turned Your face from the faithful! What shall I say? Shall I be silent or shall I tell of the insults brought upon the Savior and the holy images? Spare me, O Lord, if I recount such foul wickedness. O the confusion of the Christians, if they delay to avenge the injuries of Christ God! They cast to the ground the sacred effigies of God and the saints: upon which they heap not only drunkenness, but lechery. Thereafter, they carry the Crucified through the camp, mocking Him with drums playing in advance: with spittle, blasphemies, and reproaches they crucify Him again in procession: placing a Turkish cap, which they call a *Zarchula*, upon His head in mockery. "This is the God of the Christians." O the patience of God! You seem well angered, good Jesus, that for our sins You indignantly endure such great injuries again.

When the victory was won, the Turks celebrated Bacchanalia and feast days; on which the King, perhaps having become more drunken, wished for human blood to be mixed with Bacchus. Calling, therefore, Chirluca and the other consular barons to himself, having rebuked them because they had not persuaded the Emperor either to seek peace or to surrender the city to his rule, Chirluca, who had intended to curry favor with him, tried to turn the blame against the Perensians and the Venetians—who had provided weapons, soldiers, and counsel, for whose sake the Emperor had resisted: wishing, wretched man that he was, he who always desired to snatch glory with lies and schism, to escape by the same arts, he accused Calibascia, a more senior man, first in place and prudence among the Turkish barons, and very friendly to the Greeks, because he had drawn the Emperor's mind away from the counsels of peace by letters sent frequently to the Emperor, and had persuaded him to stand firm; [accusing him by] a letter—