were due respectively to Tetaldi and Pusculus. Each of these authors took part in the defence of the city. Tetaldi, who was a Florentine soldier, tells us of his escape from the slaughter immediately following the capture, and of his being picked up out of the water by a Venetian ship.[1]
Pusculus was a citizen of Brescia. Though his account of the siege is given in Latin verse, it contains many details of value of what he himself saw which are not to be found elsewhere. His poem was never altogether lost sight of, but until its publication by Ellisen,[2] in 1857, with a useful introduction, its historical value had not been recognised. The MS. from which Ellisen made his copy is dated 1470.
The late Dr. Dethier, who devoted much time and intelligent study to the topography and archaeology of Constantinople, compiled four volumes of documents relating to the siege, many of which were previously unknown. Two of them were printed about 1870, but they can hardly be said to have been published, and are only to be procured with difficulty. The remaining two contain, besides Critobulus, the 'Threnos,' Hypsilantes, an Italian and a Latin version of the 'Lamentatio' by Cardinal Isidore, an Italian version of Leonard's report to the Pope, and other documents of interest to which I refer in my pages. These volumes were printed by the Buda-Pest Academy but never published. I am indebted, however, to that learned body for a copy.
I append a list of documents (other than the four prin-
- ↑ 'Informacion envoyée (en 1453) tant par Francisco de Franco au très révérend père en Dieu Monsgr le Cardinal d'Avignon que par Jehan Blanchin et Jacques Tetaldi marchand Florentin sur la prinse de Constantinoble à laquelle le dit Jacques estoit personellement.' One version is published in Chroniques de Charles VII roi de France, par Jean Chartier, vol. iii., edited by Vallet de Virivalle (Paris, 1858). Another, published by Dethier with several important differences, is stated to be taken from Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum (Paris, 1717). Though his narrative was printed in France early in the eighteenth century, it appears to have been generally unknown and is not alluded to by Gibbon.
- ↑ Ubertini Pusculi Brixiensis Constantinopoleos: in Analekten der mittelund neugriechischen Literatur, by J. A. Ellisen (Leipzig).
