Contemporaneous Western witnesses of the siege, who tend to exaggerate the military power of the Sultan, provide disparate and higher numbers ranging from 160,000 to 200,000 and to 300,000 ( Niccolò Barbaro: 160,000 the Florentine merchant Jacopo Tedaldi and the Great Logothete George Sphrantzes:200,000 the Cardinal Isidore of Kiev and the Archbishop of Mytilene Leonardo di Chio: 300,000). But just a few months before, he had supplied the money for the reconstruction of the walls of Constantinople.
Recent studies and Ottoman archival data point out that there were about 50,000-80,000 Ottoman soldiers including between 5,000 and 10,000 Janissaries, an elite infantry corps, and thousands of Christian troops, notably 1,500 Serbian cavalry that the Serbian lord Đurađ Branković supplied as part of his obligation to the Ottoman sultan. The Ottomans, on the other hand, had a larger force. The rest of the city repaired walls, stood guard on observation posts, collected and distributed food provisions, and collected gold and silver objects from churches to melt down into coins to pay the foreign soldiers. The garrison used a few small calibre artillery bullets, which however, proved to be ineffective. The defending army’s Genoese corps was well trained and equipped, the rest of the army consisted of small amounts of well trained soldiers, armed civilians, sailors and volunteer forces from foreign communities and finally monks. These Turks kept loyal to the Emperor and perished in the ensuing battle. The army defending Constantinople was relatively small it totalled about 7,000 men, 2,000 of whom were foreigners. At the onset of the siege probably 50,000 people were living within the walls, including the refugees from the surrounding area. Turkish commander Dorgano, who was in Constantinople in the pay of the Emperor, was also guarding one of the quarters of the city on the seaward side with the Turks in his pay. The conquest of the city of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire was a key event in the Late Middle Ages which also marks, for some historians, the end of the Middle Ages. Several Greek and non-Greek intellectuals fled the city before and after the siege, with the majority of them migrating particularly to Italy, which helped fuel the Renaissance. After the conquest, Sultan Mehmed transferred the capital of the Ottoman Empire from Adrianople to Constantinople.
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The capture of Constantinople (and two other Byzantine splinter territories soon thereafter) marked the end of the Roman Empire, an imperial state which had lasted for nearly 1,500 years. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople also dealt a massive blow to Christendom, as the Ottoman armies thereafter were free to advance into Europe without an adversary to their rear. The conquest of Constantinople followed a seven-week siege that had begun on Friday, 6 April 1453. The Ottomans were commanded by 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who defeated an army commanded by Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. The Fall of Constantinople ( Greek: Άλωση της Κωνσταντινούπολης, Alōsē tēs Kōnstantinoupolēs Turkish: İstanbul'un Fethi Conquest of Istanbul) was the capture of the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire by an invading army of the Ottoman Empire on Tuesday.