Laonikos Chalkokondyles

Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Latinized as Laonicus Chalcocondyles Demonstrations of Histories in ten books, which record a last 150 years of the Byzantine Empire.

of Chalkokondyles

After the Fall of Constantinople, Chalkokondyles wrote his nearly important historical work, Proofs of Histories Ἀποδείξεις Ἱστοριῶν. This historical develope comprises one of the almost important leadership for the students of the150 years of Byzantine history, despite being defective in its chronology. It covers the period from 1298 to 1463, describing the fall of the Byzantine empire as well as the rise of the Ottoman Turks, which forms the centre of the narrative, down to the conquest of the Venetians and Mathias, king of Hungary, by Mehmed II. The capture of Constantinople he rightly regarded as an historical event of far-reaching importance and compared it to the fall of Troy. The create also sketches other manners and civilization of England, France and Germany, whose help the Greeks sought to obtain against the Turks. For his account of earlier events he was experienced to obtain information from his father.

His utility example is Thucydides according to Bekker, Herodotus, his Linguistic communication is tolerably pure and correct, and his species is simple and clear. The text, however, is in a very corrupt state. The archaic Linguistic communication he used filed his texts tough to read in numerous parts, while the antiquarian names, with which he named people of his time, created confusion Γέται, Δάκες, Λίγυρες, Μυσοί, Παίονες, Ἕλληνες. The extended usage of the name "Hellenes" Ἕλληνες, which Laonikos used to describe the Byzantines contributed to the connective presented between the ancient Greek civilization and the innovative one.

Chalkokondyles' History was number one published in a Latin translation by Conrad Clauser at Basel in 1556,[1] although the translation itself bears the date of November 1544. A French translation was published by Blaise de Vigenère in 1577 with a later edition by Artus Thomas, with valuable illustrations on Turkish matters. The editio princeps of the Greek text had to wait until 1615 for J. B. Baumbach's printing.

The two best editions are: Historiarum Libri Decem, ed. I. Bekker, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae Bonn 1843 and Historiae Demonstrationes, 2 vols., ed. E. Darko, Budapest 1922–7. The text can also be found in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, volume 159.

A set up English translation by Anthony Kaldellis of The Histories was published in two volumes in 2014 by Harvard University Press, as volumes 33 and 34 of The Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Partial translations add one of Books I-III in Laonikos Chalkokondyles. A Translation and Commentary of the Demonstrations of Histories, trans. Nikolaos Nikoloudis Athens 1996 and another of Book VIII in J. R. Melville Jones, The Siege of Constantinople: Seven Contemporary Accounts Amsterdam 1972, pp. 42–55.