surnamed the Great, their seventh Mahomet Sultan. See Turkey.

He was born at Adrianople the 24th of March 1430; and is to be remembered chiefly by us for taking Constantinople in 1453, and thereby driving many learned Greeks into the West, which was a great cause of the restoration of learning in Europe, as the Greek literature was then introduced here. He was one of the greatest men upon record, with regard to the qualities necessary to a conqueror: for he conquered two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred considerable cities. He was very ambitious of the title of Great, and the Turks gave it him; even the Christians have not disputed it with him; for he was the first of the Ottoman emperors whom the Western nations dignified with the title of Grand Seignior or Great Turk, which posterity has preserved to his descendants. Italy had suffered greater calamities, but she had never felt a terror equal to that which this sultan's victories imprinted. The inhabitants seemed already condemned to wear the turban: it is certain, that pope Sixtus IV. represented to himself Rome as already involved in the dreadful fate of Constantinople; and thought of nothing but escaping into Provence, and once more transferring the holy see to Avignon. Accordingly, the news of Mahomet's death, which happened the 3rd of May 1481, was received at Rome with the greatest joy that ever was beheld there. Sixtus caused all the churches to be thrown open, made the tradespeople leave off their work, ordered a feast of three days, with public prayers and processions, commanded a discharge of the whole artillery of the castle of St Angelo all that time, and put a stop to his journey to Avignon.

He appears to be the first sultan who was a lover of arts and sciences; and even cultivated polite letters. He often read the History of Augustus, and the other Caesars; and he perused those of Alexander, Constantine, and Theodosius, with more than ordinary pleasure, because these had reigned in the same country with himself. He was fond of painting, music, and sculpture; and he applied himself to the study of agriculture. He was much addicted to astrology; and used to encourage his troops by giving out, that the motion and influence of the heavenly bodies promised him the empire of the world. Contrary to the genius of his country, he delighted to much in the knowledge of foreign languages, that he not only spoke the Arabian, to which the Turkish laws, and the religion of their legislator Mahomet, are appropriated, but also the Persian, the Greek, and the French, that is, the corrupted Italian. Landin, a knight of Rhodes, collected several letters which this sultan wrote in the Syriac, Greek, and Turkish languages, and translated them into Latin. Where the originals are, nobody knows; but the translation has been published several times; as at Lyons 1520, in 4to; at Basil 1554, 12mo; in a collection published by Oporinus, at Marburg 1624, in 8vo; and at Leipzig 1690, in 12mo. Melchior Junius, professor of eloquence at Strasbourg, published at Montbeliard, 1595, a collection of letters, in which there are three written by Mahomet II. to Scanderbeg. One cannot discover the least air of Turkish ferocity in these letters: they are written in as civil terms, and as obliging a manner,