Diary of the Siege of Constantinople
Nicolò Barbaro1453
A day-by-day record of the siege of 1453 kept by the surgeon of the Venetian galleys in the harbour of Constantinople. He was in the city until its last morning and escaped by ship.
Barbaro belonged to a patrician family of Venice and was surgeon of the Venetian galleys. He writes as a Venetian, proud of his countrymen and at times unfair to the Greeks and the Genoese. His figures for the Ottoman army are those of a man looking out from the walls, and he puts his own interpretation on events, including the prophecies he says were fulfilled.
Within those limits it is a detailed eyewitness account from inside the city, with dated entries from April to the end of May. See the Fall of Constantinople.
Cited in
- 29 May 1453, firm date