ABSTRACT
The execution of Loukas Notaras is the only event of this sort that has been provided with details by an eyewitness and the early sources on the fall and sack. While many, especially prominent defenders and numerous Greek noblemen, submitted to the executioner, our sources choose for various reasons to concentrate their attention upon the execution of the grand duke. Yet in spite of the apparent wealth of details, we may conclude that very few authentic touches have survived. The essential point is that no one who may have witnessed the execution wrote down his or her impressions. While Cardinal Isidore was still within the vicinity of conquered Constantinople, busily concealing himself among the Genoese in Pera,1 for he was sufficiently fortunate to escape the sultan’s agents who were actively looking for him (and were aided by the rumor that he had perished), he provides a short account, which cannot be considered an eyewitness account. In all likelihood, the cardinal learned of the grand duke’s execution, but he was not present at the event. Further, Henry of Soemmern states that Isidore was ransomed and brought to Pera three days after the Turkish victory, that is, on the same day that Notaras met his fate: incognitus mansit tribus diebus in magno exercitu Teucrorum, “unrecognized, he remained in the great camp of the Turks three days.” Furthermore, all other accounts can be classified as hearsay, for all of the authors had departed from Constantinople by the time the massacre of the sultan’s prisoners had commenced at Vefa Meidan. Nevertheless, Cardinal Isidore’s account presents one essential fact: the grand duke was executed three days after the fall, that is, either June 1 or June 2, the day of the cardinal’s ransom. There is no reason to question the cardinal’s authority on this point. One regrets, however, the brevity of the prelate’s account, which clearly possesses more certitude than what he reports in his letter, but, as with all controversial points in his letter
1 The narrow escape of Cardinal Isidore is narrated by Henry of Soemmern (September 11, 1453) [CC 2: 92-94, with Italian translations of some selections; for the entire text with English translation, cf. Philippides, Mehmed II the Conqueror: Cardinalis Ruthenus [sc. Isidore]…per aliquos servitorum suorum coactus, fugit in ecclesiam [sc. Hagia Sophia], ubi captus est a Turcis et tanquam incognitus mansit tribus diebus in magno exercitu Turcorum. Et erat ei praesidio quod famabatur et ab imperatore Turcorum credebatur occisus. Tandem cardinalis ipse redemptus est pro C ducatis et vectus est in Peram mansitque absconditus VIII diebus fugiendo de domo in domum occulte…. On the day of the sack, it was practically impossible to discover what had happened to him. So states Benvenuto (TIePN, p. 4), who may also imply that it is his opinion that the cardinal had been executed: Item quod de reverendissimo domino cardinali nichil scit det<e>rminate, nisi quod stabta super murum ad custodiam; vidit [sc. Benevenutus] tamen multos eici mortuos et vivos de muris. Stefano Magno provides a different account, which is not encountered in the literature that appeared soon after the sack (NE 3: 299): Isidor, arcivescovo pruteno, cardinal legato Sabinense, il quale si attrovava legato di papa in detta cittade, mutado
to Bessarion, but, as with all controversial points in his letter to the Cardinal, he either omits specifics on purpose or indicates that he will report the details in person. Similarly, Pusculo, also a prisoner of the Turks, was in the vicinity but his exact whereabouts are unknown. At first, he was probably herded together with the less prominent prisoners into a camp outside the city, where the human booty was being apportioned by the victors and sold to slave dealers. He has a few comments on the execution, but again he must be basing his meager account primarily on hearsay. Bishop Leonardo departed the vicinity by the time the executions had begun and his account presents the earliest hostile report that casts dispersions upon the character and the motives of the grand duke, but, as it is amply evident in Leonardo’s narrative, the bishop, for unknown reasons, had no fondness for Loukas Notaras. He is inclined to feel more friendly towards the sultan’s vizier, Halil Candarlı, who, it appears, after all is said and done, had connections with the Greek court and revealed some of the sultan’s plans to the Greek high command. Even though the secondary narrative of Doukas agrees on this point, we do not feel confident with Leonardo’s version of the execution of Notaras and we should not be blinded by the fact that Leonardo authored the most authoritative and most influential account. Even though he was an eyewitness, his account can be shown to favor the dramatic and he had a tendency for theatrics, which he has interspersed in his otherwise informative narrative. Sometimes he gets carried away and reports what should have happened, dramatis causa, rather than the prosaic depressing reality. The most important incident that he seems to have invented deals with the events just before the final assault of the Turks. Leonardo reports that there was a celebration of the liturgy in Hagia Sophia, attended by the emperor and all his commanders. They then moved together to the palace of Blakhernai, and the emperor took the opportunity to deliver a long and tedious speech, and bid a leisurely farewell to his comrades in arms. The emperor in those final hours would have had no opportunity to deliver this speech. This literary creation of Leonardo has inspired some scholars by the majesty of the scene.2 Indeed, such passages are characteristic of a tragic mood. But the historian may well inquire as to their accuracy. Was there in fact a last celebration attended by the emperor in Hagia Sophia? Did the emperor actually address his Greek and Italian barons in the palace before the general assault? Was there really an opportunity for dramatic speeches? Aside from Leonardo, who has a flair for the emotional, other eyewitnesses fail to mention such moving scenes. And there is every reason to conclude that Leonardo has provided his own free embellishment of the facts. The speech that he reports and attributes to the emperor may be the bishop’s own embellishment, and his effort to add pathos and dignity to a narrative that is about to reach its crucial juncture. Leonardo is emulated by Pseudo-Sphrantzes, who incorporates Leonardo’s narrative into his own account and produces an even longer speech through mere rhetorical amplificatio. More likely in the final hours preceding the general assault there was little time for celebration in Hagia Sophia, at least for the active defenders who were concerned with the immediate defense. Such services for commanders and troops must have been celebrated in the vicinity of the land fortifications, where the main attack was anticipated, perhaps in the church of Saint Savior in Khora (now Kariye Camii), which
had been functioning as the imperial chapel for a number of years prior to the siege. It is inconceivable that the emperor and all his important commanders, Greek, Venetian, and Genoese, would leave their posts, move in a procession all the way across the city to Hagia Sophia by the Golden Horn, then make their way to the “palace” where Constantine delivered a leisurely and tedious speech. Only then, after this long absence from the walls, they took their places on the fortifications, moments before the commencement of the final hostilities. The plain fact is that Constantine had abandoned his imperial quarters at the palace of Blakhernai, which had been turned over to the Venetian bailo and his troops during the siege.3 And we do know from other eyewitness sources that Constantine XI had erected a tent to house himself and to serve as his headquarters in the enclosure between the great and outer walls at this late stage in the drama.4 The emperor and his commanders, who had been continually repairing the collapsed defenses with their troops and workers, would have had no opportunity to assemble for last-minute processions, speeches, and farewell scenes, however moving and dignified they might be. In all likelihood, they were all too busy supervising the lastminute repairs that must have been going on at a feverish pace, as the general assault of the Turks was expected. If any speeches were made, they would have been very short and hastily improvised at the critical sector. If any church services were conducted for the troops and commanders of the land sectors, they took place in the vicinity of the walls and not in Hagia Sophia at the tip of the Golden Horn. We can only conclude that Leonardo paints this fictional scene in the ancient cathedral and in the imperial palace in order to add nobility, atmosphere, and pathos to his narrative, for he wished to wrap the slain emperor in a shroud of tragic dignity. Leonardo is followed faithfully by his imitators: Languschi-Dolfin, the Anonymous Barberini Chronicle, and Sansovino, each of whom (or which) adds nothing to his narrative. Sansovino’s recital will not be quoted here, as it is essentially identical to the accounts of the other disciples of Leonardo. Leonardo’s Greek follower, however, Pseudo-Sphrantzes, goes further and adds information to cast the grand duke in even darker colors. What animosity Pseudo-Sphrantzes had against the grand duke is not known. By the time he came to Italy and elaborated the authentic narrative of Sphrantzes, the grand duke had been dead for over one century and no identifiable and direct descendants were alive in Italy. His most influential daughter, Anna, had died, more virginis;5 her sisters, however, had left descendants and Pseudo-Sphrantzes, among his
3 During the siege the Venetians defended the area around the imperial Blakhernai Palace. Since the banner of Saint Mark flew above the official residence of the Greek emperor, one might think of an intriguing and diplomatically thorny situation that would have resulted had Constantinople been saved in 1453. 4 That the emperor had actually established his headquarters about the critical sector is stated explicitly in Pusculo’s hexameters (4.1007-1013 [81], omitted by CC 1); Pusculo relates that the emperor attempted to catch some sleep in this tent before Giustiniani was wounded in the final assault: intra tentoria (4.1008 [81]). There is no reason to doubt the evidence supplied by this eyewitness. 5 M. Sanuto, Diarii di Marino Sanuto, ed. R. Fulin, 7 (Venice, 1882): 115, who further comments on her wealth and adds that she had been over one hundred years old when she died. The date of
travels, had also visited Venice and had sought support of the Greek émigrés.6 Could it be that a distant descendant of the grand duke had rejected him and he then decided to cast the grand duke in a very negative portrait? Pseudo-Sphrantzes went out of his way to incorporate even a folk tale that was already superannuated, as it appears in the narrative of Marco Polo.7 Thus again, in this case, we cannot anticipate accurate details. From the textual point of view, the accounts of Sekoundinos, Moskhos, Doukas, and di Montaldo have to be considered concurrently. They are independent of the surviving narratives that we have just examined, but they seem to have a certain relationship to one another. What they all have in common is the speech that supposedly Notaras pronounced to encourage his sons and son-in-law to submit willingly to the executioner and not to convert to Islam in order to save their own lives. The previous sources do not mention any such address. Of the three accounts, Sekoundinos’ is the earliest, as it is part of a speech that he pronounced in the court of Naples in January 1454, within months after the fall.8 Further, it should be recalled that Sekoundinos had lately returned from the occupied capital of the Greeks, where he had been included in a Venetian embassy that had visited Mehmed II in order to ascertain the fate of some Venetian prisoners, and to ransom those that were still languishing in Ottoman prisons. He as well was to establish some modus vivendi with the conqueror. Sekoundinos probably interviewed survivors, to satisfy his own curiosity at the very least, and he may have acquired stories about particular events that followed the sack. He may have even learned of the execution of Notaras and may have been informed that the grand duke encouraged his sons and son-inlaw before their executions. The speech that Sekoundinos ascribes to Notaras, with the detailed argumentation, is probably his own invention and elaboration.
