Per l’epistolario di Isidoro di Kiev: la lettera a papa Niccolò V del 6 luglio 1453

On July 6, 1453, Cardinal Isidoros of Kiev (ca. 1385-1463) wrote a Latin letter to Pope Nicholas V from Crete, where he had fleed after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. In this epistle, Isidoros describes the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks within the city and asks the Pope to proclaim a crusade aimed at recovering the capital of the Byzantine empire and at rescuing the Eastern christians. A partial transcription of this letter was published with an Italian translation by Agostino Pertusi in 1976. An edition of the complete text is given here from MS Ven. Marc. lat. 496 (1688), together with a new Italian translation and a commentary.