Ioannis Cantacuzeni Eximperatoris Historiarum Libri IV - Volume 1

This three-volume work of Byzantine history by the ex-Emperor John VI Cantacuzene was edited together with a Latin translation by the Jesuit scholar Pontanus (15421626) by Ludwig Schopen (17991867) and published between 1828 and 1832. It covers part of the same period as the works by George Pachymeres and Nicephorus Gregoras (also reissued in this series) and the three accounts can usefully be compared. John Cantacuzene (c. 12921383) was unusual among Byzantine emperors in that he appears to have been reluctant to take the throne and also in that having been deposed in 1354 he was allowed to retire to a monastery where he wrote this account of his times. The historian Edward Gibbon among others noted the self-justificatory tone of his memoir. Volume 1 includes the life of John by Pontanus and covers the period from 1321 to the death of Andronikos III in 1341.