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APPEECIATION OF JUSTINIANI 311 thus became the hero of all who were fighting. All the city, says the Florentine soldier Tetaldi, had great hopes in him and in his valour. Mahomet himself was reported to have expressed admiration of the courage and ability, the fertility of resource and the activity of Justiniani, and to have re- gretted that he was not in the Turkish army. In front of the stockade was the sultan, surrounded by his white-capped Janissaries and the red-fezzed other members of his chosen bodyguard. Everything indeed pointed to a great fight at the stockade, where the great leaders and the flower of each army stood opposite each other. About the beginning of the last week in May the Turks were alarmed by the rumour of an approaching fleet and of an army of Hungarians under John Hunyadi, both of which were reported to be on their way to the relief of the city. 1 The alarm, however, proved to be false. As Phrantzes laments, no Christian prince sent a man or a penny to the aid of the city. 2 At first sight it is somewhat surprising that no aid came either from the Serbians or Hungarians. During the early days of the siege assistance had been hoped for from both of these peoples. Phrantzes states that the despot of Serbia, George Brancovich, treated the sultan in such a manner as to make Mahomet taunt the Christians with his hostility to Constantine. 3 With the recollection of the Turkish victories at Varna and at Cossovo-pol, and especially of the fact that he had himself been attacked because he would not join in violating the peace between Ladislaus and Murad, it is probable enough that Brancovich was not unfriendly towards Mahomet. Indeed, at the request of the young sultan, he had used his influence to bring about a three years' armistice between the Turks and the Hungarians. It is not, therefore, surprising that no aid came from him. 1 Phrantzes, 263. 2 Ibid. 326. M. Mijatovieh, in his pleasant and valuable Constantine, last Emperor of the Greeks, states that Mahomet received an ambassador from Ladislaus on May 26 (p. 198) ; but I do not know on what authority. 3 Phrantzes, 325.