Pseudo-Sphrantzes is the conventional name for the anonymous 16th-century author of the Chronicon Maius, a work falsely attributed to the 15th-century historian George Sphrantzes. The author's identity is unknown but was likely a Greek scholar writing after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, possibly in the late 16th century, who expanded Sphrantzes’s authentic memoir, the Chronicon Minus, into a much longer narrative. The text reflects the historical perspectives of Greek communities under Ottoman rule, dramatizing the history of the lost Byzantine Empire.

The sole significant work attributed to this figure is the Chronicon Maius. This lengthy historical chronicle elaborates on the authentic Chronicon Minus of George Sphrantzes to create a comprehensive history of the late Byzantine Empire.

For centuries, the Chronicon Maius was accepted as a genuine eyewitness account and served as a primary source for the empire’s final years, shaping the understanding of events like the 1453 conquest. Modern scholarship’s separation of the two chronicles revealed the Maius not as a 15th-century record, but as a crucial 16th-century document of historical memory.