Candida completo cum Phoebe surgeret orbe
Moesta prodit, fati miseri cladisque propinquae
Nuntia; nam tristis faciem velamine nubis
Tecta atrae, mediaque latens plus parte sereno
Incedit coelo.
Barbaro seems to describe an eclipse of the moon on May 22. The elder Dr. Mordtmann states that there was no full moon and consequently no eclipse on the 22nd, but that there was on the 24th. Dethier’s note on The Moscovite, p. 1100. Phrantzes, p. 264, speaks of a light flashing from the sky settling over the city, and remaining during the whole night. See note, post p. [316].
[348] Constantine was a widower, his wife, Catherine, having died in 1442, a year after her marriage. Phrantzes, 195–8.
[349] The same remark applies to The Moscovite generally. There are so many manifest fringes to what ought to have been the correct narrative of an eye-witness that it is impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood.
[350] Barbaro, under May 20.
[351] Leonard, Opere, p. 94.