ABSTRACT
I. General Remarks There exists a serious gap in the scholarship about the siege. There is no authoritative and comprehensive list of the defenders and the besiegers. We encounter general statements1 about defenders, commanders, and soldiers but no roster, which describes their roles and their activities during the siege, their fate in the sack, or their behavior after the fall of Constantinople. In short, no prosopography of the defenders has been compiled thus far, a fact that has been lamented by investigators.2 There are many reasons for this notable omission and a basic rationale undoubtedly dates back to the days before the siege. Clearly, there were not enough defenders to man the walls effectively against the Turkish assaults and the Byzantine leadership was painfully aware of this depressing state of affairs. The imperial administration was at pains to conceal these embarrassing circumstances:3
1 Cf., e.g. FC, p. 83: “Amongst the Venetians…were many that bore the most eminent surnames of the Republic, Cornaro, Mocenigo, Contarini and Venier.” 2 Cf., e.g., the remarks of Philippides, “Giovanni Guglielmo Longo Giustiniani,” p. 53: “The compilation of the prosopography of the participants in the siege and sack of Constantinople in 1453 has become imperative. There has never been any systematic study of defenders, attackers, and survivors. Such a project could provide us with a solid background to carry out an authoritative, military study of the operations. A prosopography based on reliable, authoritative texts composed by eyewitnesses and not on secondary documents that have passed thus far as primary texts must be carried out as the numerous analyses of the siege that have already appeared are deficient and seriously flawed on various aspects. The definitive investigation remains to be concluded.” Also cf. the conservative estimate of Hanak and Philippides, The Tale of Constantinople (Of Its Origin and Capture), p. 127, n. 70: “The prosopography of the combatants in the siege of Constantinople has yet to be compiled. It has been estimated that our sources name about eighty individuals as commanders of various sectors and other notables in the city.” There have been some modest attempts to establish facts about some of the defenders. A short list of participants that are directly and indirectly involved with the siege is offered by Philippides, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire, pp. 157-161: “Brief Summary of the Main Characters in the Works of Sphrantzes and Melissenos”; Browning, “A Note on the Capture of Constantinople in 1453,” pp. 379-383; Manoussakas, “Les derniers défenseurs crétois de Constantinople,” pp. 331-340; Olgiati, “Notes on the Participation of the Genoese in the Defense of Constantinople,” pp. 48-58; eadem, “Angelo Giovanni Lomellino,” pp. 139-196; Philippides, “Some Prosopographical Considerations in Nestor-Iskander’s Text,” pp. 35-50; idem, “The Name Sphrantzes in Ubertino Pusculo,” pp. 208211; idem, “Giovanni Guglielmo Longo Giustiniani”; Ganchou, “Le Mésazon Démétrius Paléologue Cantacuzène,” pp. 245-272; and idem, “Sur quelques erreurs relatives aux derniers défenseurs grecs de Constantinople en 1453,” pp. 61-82. 3
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