Crusades and Crusaders in Medieval Greece 49
Genoa called its citizens in the Levant, the Black Sea, and Syria to provide help
to Emperor Constantine and to the Despot Demetrios. For the most part, how-
ever, words remained words. The only exceptions were the 200 archers who had
come with Cardinal Isidore in May 1452 and the Genoese Giovanni Giustiniani
who arrived at Constantinople at the head of 700 men, recruited in Genoa,
Chios and Rhodes. The Venetian Senate on its part, after a good deal of prevari-
cation, voted in February 1453 to send fifteen galleys. The Venetian fleet was
still on its way, however, when news of the fall of the imperial city reached it.71
After months of preparations, the Ottoman army marched out of Adrianople
in late March, and in the early days of April 1453 the siege of Constantinople
began. After weeks of ferocious fighting and desperate resistance, the imperial
city succumbed on 29 May 1453.72
The news of the fall of Constantinople were received as a shock in the West
and brought about a renewal of crusade calls for Romania.73 The first call for
the recovery of the Byzantine capital was issued by Pope Nicholas v already on
30 September 1453. Philip the Good of Burgundy raised funds for an expedition
against the Turks, after proclaiming his willingness to take up the Holy War
among much pageantry at the Feast of the Pheasant (February 1454). Alfonso v
of Aragon and Frederick iii took the cross in late 1455. However, no such cam-
paign followed. The last and greatest crusading effort for the restoration of
Byzantium came under Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, a prominent scholar and
a leading humanist who was raised to the papal throne as Pius ii (1458–64).
Pius made the war against the Turks the priority of his pontificate. Response to
his early efforts was disappointing, but in 1463 he renewed his crusade call with
the unprecedented step of taking the cross and promising to lead the cam-
paign in person, although seriously ill. The pope’s example, self-sacrifice and
tireless activity bore fruit. Venice, Hungary and Burgundy agreed to participate
in the expedition set to meet in Ancona in the summer of 1464. Venetian and
71 Nicolae Iorga, Notes et extraits pour servir à l’histoire des croisades au XVe siècle, 5 vols.
(Paris, 1899–1902), 2:481–82, 3:281, 283; Donald M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice: A Study
in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 393–401; M.-M. Alexandru-
Dersca Bulgaru, “L’action diplomatique et militaire de Venise pour la défense de
Constantinople,” Revue Roumaine d’Histoire 12 (1974), 247–67.
72 The literature on the fall of Constantinople is very extensive; for a classic lively descrip-
tion, see Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453 (Cambridge, 1965); the most
recent and exhaustive work: Marios Philippides and Walter K. Hanak, The Siege and Fall of
Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, Topography and Military Studies (Burlington, 2011);
a good overview also in Setton, Papacy, 2:112–37.
73 For the reactions see e.g. Agostino Pertusi, ed., La Caduta di Costantinopoli, 2 vols. (Rome,
1976), esp. vol. 2: L’eco nel mondo.