A Greek scholar recites the last minutes of the last Roman Emperor, Constantine XI, as follows:
"Although he (Constantine XI) clearly saw with his own eyes the danger that threatened the city, and had the opportunity to save himself - as well as many people encouraging him to do so - he refused, preferring to die with his country and his subjects.
"Indeed, he chose to die first, so that he might avoid the sight of the city being taken and of its inhabitants being either savagely slaughtered or shamefully led away into slavery. When he saw that the enemy were forcing him back, and surging through the broken down wall into the city, it is said that he uttered in a great voice, these last words 'The city is taken; and should I still live?' With that he thrust himself into the midst of the enemy and was cut down."
Barbaro then went on to relate the horror of the Turks sack of the city, scenes which were repeated all over central and southern Europe:
"On 29 May 1453, the Turks entered Constantinople at daybreak. Before they entered the city, the confusion of those Turks and of the Christians was so great that they met face to face, and so many died that the dead bodies would have filled twenty carts.
"The Turks put the city to sword as they came, and everyone they found in their way they slashed with their scimitars, women and men, old and young, of every condition, and this slaughter continued from dawn until midday. Those Italian merchants who escaped hid in caves under the ground, but they were found by the Turks, and were all taken captive and sold as slaves. When those of the Turkish fleet saw with their own eyes that the Christians had lost Constantinople, that the flag of Sultan Mehmed had been hoisted over the highest tower in the city, and that the emperor's flags had been cut down and lowered, then all those in the seventy galleys went ashore . . .
"They sought out the convents and all the nuns were taken to the ships and abused and dishonoured by the Turks, and they were all sold at auction as slaves to be taken to Turkey, and similarly the young women were all dishonoured and sold at auction; some preferred to throw themselves into wells and drown.
"These Turks loaded their ships with people and a great treasure. They had this custom: when they entered a house, they would at once raise a flag with their own device, and when other Turks saw such a flag raised, no other Turk would for the world enter that house but would go looking for a house that had no flag; it was the same with all the convents and churches. As I understand it, it seems there were some two hundred thousand of these flags on the houses of Constantinople . . these flags flew above the houses for the whole of that day, and for all of that day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians in the city. Blood flowed on the ground as though it were raining."











