Editing Constantine XI Palaiologos (section)

=== Death ===
[[File:Theofilos Palaiologos.jpg|thumb|Romanticized depiction of the final fighting at the [[fall of Constantinople]] by Greek folk painter [[Theophilos Hatzimihail]] (1932). Constantine is depicted as charging into battle on a white horse.]]
Constantine died the day Constantinople fell. There were no known surviving eyewitnesses to the death of the emperor and none of his entourage survived to offer any credible account of his death.{{Sfn|Philippides|Hanak|p=100|2011}}{{Sfn|Harris|2019|p=}} The Greek historian [[Michael Critobulus]], who later worked in the service of Mehmed, wrote that Constantine died fighting the Ottomans. Later Greek historians accepted Critobulus's account, never doubting that Constantine died as a hero and [[martyr]], an idea never seriously questioned in the Greek-speaking world.{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=70}} Though none of the authors were eyewitnesses, a vast majority of those who wrote of Constantinople's fall, both Christians and Muslims, agree that Constantine died in the battle, with only three accounts claiming that the emperor escaped the city. It also seems probable that his body was later found and decapitated.{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=82}} According to Critobulus, the last words of Constantine before he charged at the Ottomans were "the city is fallen and I am still alive".{{Sfn|Sherrard|1965|p=139}}
There were other conflicting contemporary accounts of Constantine's demise. Leonard of Chios, who was taken prisoner by the Ottomans but later managed to escape, wrote that once Giustiniani had fled the battle, Constantine's courage failed and the emperor implored his young officers to kill him so that he would not be captured alive by the Ottomans. None of the soldiers were brave enough to kill the emperor and once the Ottomans broke through, Constantine fell in the ensuing fight, only to briefly get up before falling again and being trampled. The Venetian physician [[Niccolò Barbaro]], who was present at the siege, wrote that no one knew if the emperor had died or escaped the city alive, noting that some said that his corpse had been seen among the dead while others claimed that he had hanged himself as soon as the Ottomans had broken through at the St. Romanus gate. Cardinal Isidore wrote, like Critobulus, that Constantine had died fighting at the St. Romanus gate. Isidore also added that he had heard that the Ottomans had found his body, cut off his head and presented it to Mehmed as a gift, who was delighted and showered the head with insults before taking it with him to Adrianople as a trophy. [[Jacopo Tedaldi]], a merchant from Florence who participated in the final fight, wrote that "some say that his head was cut off; others that he perished in the crush at the gate. Both stories may well be true".{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=|pp=76–77}}

Ottoman accounts of Constantine's demise all agree that the emperor was decapitated. [[Tursun Beg]], who was part of Mehmed's army at the battle, wrote a less heroic account of Constantine's death than the Christian authors. According to Tursun, Constantine panicked and fled, making for the harbor in hopes of finding a ship to escape the city. On his way there, he came across a band of Turkish marines, and after charging and nearly killing one of them, was decapitated. A later account by Ottoman historian [[Ibn Kemal]] is similar to Tursun's account, but states that the emperor's head was cut off by a giant marine, who killed him without realizing who he was.{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=|pp=79–80}} [[Nicola Sagundino]], a Venetian who had once been a prisoner of the Ottomans following their conquest of Thessaloniki decades before, gave an account of Constantine's death to Alfonso V of Aragon and Naples in 1454 since he believed that the emperor's fate "deserved to be recorded and remembered for all time". Sagundino stated that although Giustiniani implored the emperor to escape as he was carried away after falling on the battlefield, Constantine refused and preferred to die with his empire. Constantine went to where the fighting appeared to be thickest and, as it would be unworthy of him to be captured alive, implored his officers to kill him. When none of them obeyed his command, Constantine threw off his imperial regalia, as to not let himself be distinguished from the other soldiers, and disappeared into the fray, sword in hand. According to one source, when Mehmed wanted the defeated Constantine to be brought to him, he was told it was too late as the emperor was dead. A search for the body was conducted, and when it was found, the emperor's head was cut off and paraded through Constantinople before it was sent to the Sultan of Egypt as a gift, alongside twenty captured women and forty captured men.{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=|pp=81–82}}