Editing Constantine XI Palaiologos (section)

=== Lamentations ===
[[File:Constantine Palaiologos 1584.jpg|left|thumb|Constantine XI as depicted in 1584 by [[André Thevet]]]]
The fall of Constantinople shocked Christians throughout Europe. In Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia became symbols of lost grandeur. In the Russian Nestor Iskander tale, the foundation of Constantinople (the New Rome) by Constantine the Great and its loss under an emperor by the same name was not seen as a coincidence, but as the fulfilling of the city's destiny, just as Old Rome had been founded by [[Romulus]] and lost under [[Romulus Augustulus]].{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=|pp=97–98}}

[[Andronikos Kallistos]], a prominent 15th-century Greek scholar and Byzantine refugee to Italy, wrote a text entitled ''Monodia'' in which he laments the fall of Constantinople and mourns Constantine Palaiologos, whom he refers to as "a ruler more perceptive than Themistocles, more fluent than [[Nestor (mythology)|Nestor]], wiser than [[Cyrus the Great|Cyrus]], more just than [[Rhadamanthus]] and braver than [[Hercules]]".{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=97}}

The 1453 Greek long poem ''Capture of the City'', of uncertain authorship, laments the bad luck of Constantine, which the author blames on Constantine's ill-advised destruction of Glarentza (including its churches) in the 1420s. According to the author, all of Constantine's other misfortunes—the destruction of the Hexamilion wall, the death of his brother John VIII, and the fall of Constantinople—were the result of what happened at Glarentza. Even then, Constantine was not to blame for Constantinople's fall: he had done what he could and ultimately relied on help from Western Europe that never came. The poem concludes that people say Constantine died by his own sword,{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|p=|pp=98–99}} and ends with personally addressing the dead emperor:

{{blockquote|quote=Tell me, where are you to be found? Are you alive, or did you die by your own sword? The conquering Sultan Mehmed searched among the severed heads and corpses, but he never found you ... There are those that say that you are hidden beneath the almighty right hand of the Lord. Would that you were really alive and not dead.{{Sfn|Nicol|1992|pp=99–100}}|title=|source=}}