ABSTRACT
I. General Remarks During the nineteenth century, “new” sources describing the siege, fall and sack of Constantinople in 1453 were discovered. The texts that had been forgotten or misplaced since the days of the Renaissance were edited and published in scholarly journals. A significant number of important documents saw the light of print for the first time: 1. The report of Angelo Giovanni Lomellino, the Genoese podestà of Pera/Galatas, the Genoese suburb across Constantinople on the northern shore of the Golden Horn. This important epistula dealing with the siege, sack, and the fate of Pera was composed on June 23, 1453, while Lomellino still felt the effects of the disaster and was still in deep grief and a state of depression.1 2. The valuable diary of the Venetian physician Nicolò Barbaro, who was on board a Venetian galley in defense of the harbor and who recorded all events, including numerous operations on the western land fortifications. He provides informative lists of Venetian combatants, casualties, refugees, and prisoners who fell into the hands of the Turks and were subsequently ransomed or perished in captivity.2
