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 128 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIRE nople, that he would rather his right hand had been cut off than that it should have subscribed the Union. In order to avoid the scandal of an open rupture, the four copies of the decree did not mention the supremacy of the pope. Other copies signed only by the Latin bishops were not recognised as authentic by the Greeks. 1 The patriarch, a man of eighty, died just before the decree of the Union was signed, and was buried in the Bap- tistery of Florence. Eeligious animosity dogmatised over his grave about his opinions. Some of the Greeks subsequently pretended that his death was one of the several causes which rendered the Council illegal. Some of the Latins maintained that he had left a declaration of his acceptance of the Eoman doctrine, and even of the supremacy of the pope. John re- The two persons who had shown themselves sincerely Crastanti- desirous of accomplishing a Union were the pope and the August emperor. The former, who had paid the expenses of the 1439. Greek mission, now urged foreign states to prepare and send forth armies in aid of the Greeks. On the departure of John, in August 1439, for his capital, the pontiff not merely promised all the aid he could furnish, but undertook to maintain, at his own expense as long as he lived, three hundred men in the imperial service. He at once sent two well-armed galleys, and declared that he would furnish twenty ships of war during a period of six months. Eugenius and John had loyally stood by each other, and so far as depended upon them the Union had been accomplished. With the object of giving effect to the decisions arrived at, the pope retained Bessarion and Isidore, both of whom he made cardinals. The latter, we shall see, was present at Constantinople during the final siege. He was metropolitan of Eussia, and on his return to Moscow proclaimed the 1 The copies sent to London and Karlsruhe, as well as the diptych of Borne (the official record) consulted by Niches, signed by the emperor of Constantinople and by thirty-six Latin prelates, contain on this point only the following : eri opi'fo/xei/ tV ayiav airoaroXiK^v KaQedpav na rbv pOjxa'iKbv SidSoxov slvai rod [xaicapiov n4rpov. The pope and forty-two Latin prelates, on the other hand, signed the fol- lowing : Item definimus S. Ap.sedemetromanumpontificemin universum orbem. tenere primatum et ipsum pontificem romanum successorem esse S. Petri.