Bombing Constantinople: The Poetics of a New Weapon in Ubertino Posculo’s Constantinopolis

Ubertino Posculo's Constantinopolis is an epic poem in four books of Latin hexameters on the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453. Posculo, who eyewitnessed the events, was a keen observer of the siege and of the military maneuvers of both the defenders and the attackers. Moreover, he is possibly the first Neo-Latin poet to give an account of the use of modern artillery. This article surveys some passages of the poem describing the effects of bombarda and the people's reaction to it.