Niccolò Sagundino

[6][9] Possibly already in 1437 he left Greece for Italy, staying either in Venice or Rome;[9] in 1438, because of his fluency in both Greek and Latin, Sagundino was sent to the Council of Ferrara as an official translator.

[11][3] His activity from 1441 to the end of Eugene's pontificate is not documented, but he is still attested as an apostolic secretary under Pope Nicholas V in December 1452, which means he likely served in the same post throughout the period in question.

[14] His stay in Constantinople was apparently brief,[15] and he returned to Venice in autumn, bearing letters from Marcello to the Venetian Senate, but then immediately sent to Rome on the express wish of Pope Nicholas V to inform him on Ottoman intentions, and from there to Alfonso V of Aragon, the King of Naples, for the same purpose.

[1][16] In January 1454 Sagundino, while still in Naples, wrote a report on his observations of the Ottomans (Oratio Nicolai Sagundini édita in Urbe Neapoli ad Serenissimum principem et novissimum regem Alfonsum).

[3][18] In this capacity he returned to Naples in late 1455 to convey letters from the Venetian government to Alfonso, and stayed there until August 1456, making contact with the numerous humanist scholars resident in the city.

[20] In spring 1457 Sagundino was again sent on diplomatic missions on behalf of the Venetian government, first to Siena, and then to the Pope in Rome and the King of Naples, where he remained for several months, reporting on Alfonso's Italian policies and military preparations, before returning to Venice in early 1458.

[21] In June 1458 Sagundino undertook yet another mission to Rome, conveying Venice's reasons for its reluctance to participate in the planned anti-Ottoman crusade of Pope Callixtus III.

[24] In July 1460, Sagundino decided to bring his family to Crete, but the journey was cut short by a shipwreck that took the lives of his pregnant wife, two sons (including his favourite, Giovanni) and a daughter and destroyed his books and many other possessions.

Based on a letter by Sagundino from 1462, where he reports having crossed most of Anatolia, the Venetian envoy likely journeyed east to meet the Sultan, who was at the time campaigning to conquer the Empire of Trebizond.

[30][6] Among his notable correspondents were Ulisse degli Aleotti, Bishop Ermolao Barbaro, Antonio Beccadelli Panormita, Andrea Contrario, George of Trebizond and Zaccaria Trevisan.

[33] In 1456, he was commissioned by Enea Silvio Piccolomini (the future Pope Pius II) to write a history of the Ottoman Empire, which resulted in his De familia otumanorum.