This book is a translation and edition of the work written by Spandounes in 1538 andpublished and edited by C. N. Sathas in Documents inédits relatifs àl'histoire de la Grèce au moyen âge, vol. IX (Paris, 1890). TheodoreSpandounes, or Spandugnino, was probably born in Venice and died after 1538. He was sentwhen young to his great-aunt Mara, widow of Murad II, who was then living in easternMacedonia, and seems to have visited Istanbul in 1503. At the end of 1508, he was exiled fromVenice as a suspected Francophile and was in France from 1509. By 1516, he had returned toVenice.