Giovanni Giustiniani

Giovanni Giustiniani was a Genoese military commander who came to Constantinople in 1453 to help defend the city against Mehmed II. Constantine XI gave him responsibility for a crucial section of the land walls, where his experience with fortifications and siege warfare made him one of the most important commanders on the Byzantine side.

Giustiniani was seriously wounded during the final Ottoman assault on 29 May and was carried away from the walls; he died shortly afterwards on Chios. His withdrawal coincided with the breakdown of the defence at its most vulnerable point.

In Roger Crowley’s Constantinople, in the spring of 1453 Sultan Mehmed II brought the resources of the expanding Ottoman state against Constantinople, the diminished but still formidable capital of the Byzantine Empire. Constantine XI Palaiologos organised a defence built around the Theodosian walls, a small Byzantine force and foreign volunteers led by the Genoese commander Giovanni Giustiniani.