Mehmed II

The Venetian Barbaro calls him Mahomet Bey, son of Murat, and says that he came in person to the walls for the final assault on 29 May 1453 (Barbaro, Diary 29 May). Kritoboulos, the Greek who wrote his history, has him enter the captured city, grieve at its ruin, and repent of the plunder he had allowed (Kritoboulos, History 1.254–256). Doukas, who calls him a tyrant and forerunner of Antichrist, reports that he went to Hagia Sophia, stopped a soldier from breaking up its floor with the words that the buildings of the city were his, and had the Muslim prayer said there (Doukas, History 40.1–2 (Bekker pp. 298–299)).

Kritoboulos says that after the conquest Mehmed laid the foundations of a palace in the city and installed Gennadius Scholarius as patriarch, with authority over the church no less than it had held under the emperors (Kritoboulos, History 2.1–2). See the Fall of Constantinople.