Introduction

Constantine XI Dragas Palaeologus was the last Byzantine monarch to reign over Constantinople. Constantine's activities extended over the administrations of his learned father and of his competent brother, John VIII, who belonged to the environment of the Renaissance. Early on in his career, Constantine became closely associated with John VIII. He fully supported his elder brother when the latter clashed with their aged father; his policies as uncrowned emperor remained faithful to John's policies. The play reaches its climax with the transformation of Constantine into the Sleeping Emperor who is conducted by angels and the Virgin to a chamber located deep into the bowels of the earth. The vast majority of scholars formed a favorable opinion of a gallant Constantine XI through the prism of his last tragic and heroic moments in life, but this view represents an assumption; no eyewitnesses survived the last stand to describe the emperor's conduct in his final moments.