Forgery of a Chronicle - Chronicle of a Forgery. Formation and Tradition of the so-called Chronicon maius by Pseudo-Sphrantzes

Pseudo-Sphrantzes的《主要纪事》（Chronicon maius）在文体和文学上都是对Georgios Sphrantzes日记的重新制作，也是时间顺序上的扩展版本，也被称为《减法纪事》。斯弗朗茨是最后一位拜占庭皇帝君士坦丁十一世（1449-1453）的高级外交官和私人朋友，是征服君士坦丁堡的亲历者。因此，以他的名义出版的两本作品都具有很高的真实性，直到20世纪30年代，人们怀疑《大年表》是伪造的，在勒班陀战役（1571年）之后，一群手稿商人和抄写员在流亡的Monembasia大都会主教的监督下在意大利编辑。这篇文章可能是为了激励基督教西方进一步的十字军东征，这次是为了从奥斯曼人手中解放君士坦丁堡，重建拜占庭帝国。最初，该项目旨在重新评估来源情况，并通过研究迄今为止被忽视的文件，探索工作的历史背景和其编纂者的个人情况。然而，迄今为止收集到的结果强烈建议将这项任务与文本的新批判版本结合起来，该版本在最初几年已经发展了几个版本，并且几个世纪以来被认为是希腊征服最重要的来源之一。

The so-called Chronicon maius by Pseudo-Sphrantzes is a stylistically and literarily reworked as well as chronologically extended version of the diary of Georgios Sphrantzes, also known as Chronicon minus. Sphrantzes, a top-ranking diplomate and personal friend of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI (1449-1453), was an eye-witness of the conquest of Constantinople. Therefore, a high authenticity had been attributed to both works published under his name, until, in the 1930s, suspicion arose that the Chronicon maius was a forgery, compiled in Italy by a group of manuscript traders and copyists under the supervision of the exiled metropolitan bishop of Monembasia not earlier than after the battle of Lepanto (1571). The text was probably written with intent to motivate the Christian occident for a further crusade, this time in order to free the City of Constantinople from the Osmans and to re-establish the Byzantine Empire. Originally, the project aimed at reapraising the source situation as well as, by the study of hitherto disregarded documents, to explore the historical background of the work and the personal situation of its compilators. However, the hitherto collected results strongly suggest to combine this task with a new critical edition of the text which, in the first years already, developed several versions and, for centuries, was considered to be one of the most important Greek sources of the conquest.