Pseudo-Sphrantzes and the Chronicle of Constantinople's Fall

Pseudo-Sphrantzes is the conventional name for the anonymous 16th-century author of the Greater Chronicle, 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 Lesser Chronicle, 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 Greater Chronicle. This lengthy historical chronicle elaborates on the authentic Lesser Chronicle of George Sphrantzes to create a comprehensive history of the late Byzantine Empire.

For centuries, the Greater Chronicle 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. The separation of the two chronicles revealed the Maius not as a 15th-century record, but as a 16th-century document of historical memory.