What happened to the manuscripts at The Fall of Constantinople?

Aghia Sophia

As (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1980) indicates The Byzantine Empire lasted from 330CE - 1453 CE, during this time we had the Christians of the west (Fourth Crusade) conquer Constantinople from 1204 CE till they were cast out in 1261 CE. The final blow came in 1453 CE when the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire came to an end.

(Polastron) points out that Constantinople fell on May 29, 1453 to the Ottoman Turks, and that more than one hundred and twenty thousand manuscripts are said to have disappeared. The city had held out the Turks for eight weeks after capturing the city, the Turks went on a rampage of killing and destroying  the city for three days. The Turks differed from the Crusaders of 1204 CE who had no regard for books, they allowed  carts of books to be transported throughout Asia and Europe. After the sacking of Constantinople it is said that ‘Mehmed II al-Fatih (Ottoman ruler) earned his nickname the Conqueror and lost his reputation as a poet,  feebly  attempted to reassemble some Greek and Latin manuscripts that escaped the disaster, which (so he said) he would have rather avoided,’  the official reporter Critobulus  states.

(Staikos) state that ‘more than a thousand Byzantine codices were taken to Italy, mostly from Constantinople, between the beginning of the fifteenth century and the Turkish conquest.’

Other sources indicate that the books were being copied and translated into Arabic and other languages therefore most of the important manuscripts had already migrated throughout Europe and the Arabic world before Constantinople fell.

In the post I have found it simple to locate information on the fall of Constantinople, there is an array of resources available online and at the library. The main issue was to link this with manuscripts or libraries of the Byzantine era, this is where difficulties arose as I was left using only three resources that I could rely on that would have authoritative information. The fall of Constantinople is a rather distressful point in time as many lives were lost and with new technology such as the canon, impenetrable walls of the past were suddenly broken down. If I were to be writing on the Fall of the Constantinople it would have been simple to locate an abundance of resources, as I am writing regarding libraries and manuscripts this becomes rather difficult.

Staikos, K 2000, The great libraries: from antiquity to the renaissance, Oak Knoll Press, Delaware.

Encyclopaedia Britannica 1980
Polastron, LX 2007, Books on fire: the tumultuous story of the world’s great libraries, Thames and Hudson, London.