own people, extols their courage, and laments their misfortunes. But in places his biography of the sultan reads like the report of an able and courageous official. His training and experience in the work of government, his service under Mahomet, and perhaps something in the nature of the man, make his narrative sober and methodical and impress the reader with the idea that the author felt a sense of responsibility for the truthfulness of what he was writing. While the narratives of Phrantzes, Chalcondylas, and Ducas recount some of the incidents of the siege more fully than that of Critobulus, the latter gives more details on others and supplies valuable information which none of them have given. His Life of Mahomet is by far the most valuable of the recently discovered documents, and, as will be seen, I have made use of it as the nucleus of my narrative of the siege. The manuscript of Critobulus was discovered by the late Dr. Dethier less than forty years ago in the Seraglio Library at Constantinople. It was transcribed by him and also by Herr Karl Müller and was published by the latter in 1883 with valuable notes.[6] Two other works of importance unknown to Gibbon were due respectively to Tetaldi and Pusculus. Each of these authors took part in the defence of the city. Tetaldi, who was a Florentine soldier, tells us of his escape from the slaughter immediately following the capture, and of his being picked up out of the water by a Venetian ship.[7] Pusculus was a citizen of Brescia. Though his account of the siege is given in Latin verse, it contains many details of value of what he himself saw which are not to be found elsewhere. His poem was never altogether lost sight of, but until its publication by Ellisen,[8] in 1857, with a useful introduction, its historical value had not been recognised. The MS. from which Ellisen made his copy is dated 1470. The late Dr. Dethier, who devoted much time and intelligent study to the topography and archæology of Constantinople, compiled four volumes of documents relating to the siege, many of which were previously unknown. Two of them were printed about 1870, but they can hardly be said to have been published, and are only to be procured with difficulty. The remaining two contain, besides Critobulus, the ‘Threnos,’ Hypsilantes, an Italian and a Latin version of the ‘Lamentatio’ by Cardinal Isidore, an Italian version of Leonard’s report to the Pope, and other documents of interest to which I refer in my pages. These volumes were printed by the Buda-Pest Academy but never published. I am indebted, however, to that learned body for a copy. I append a list of documents (other than the four principal which I have described) relating to the siege now available to the historical student which were unknown to Gibbon: