Chudov Monastery. He was denounced by certain Rus' clergymen, who were under pressure of Vasili II, for refusing to renounce the union with Rome. Exile In September 1443, after two years of imprisonment, Metropolitan Isidor escaped to Tver, then to Lithuania and on to Rome. He was graciously received by the pope in 1443. Pope Nicholas V (1447–1455) sent him as legate to Constantinople to arrange the reunion there in 1452, and gave him two hundred soldiers to help the defence of the city. On 12 December of that year he was able to unite three hundred of the Byzantine clergy in a celebration of the short-lived reunion. Before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, he subsidized the repair of fortifications at his own expense and was wounded in the early hours of the sack. He managed to escape the carnage by dressing up a dead body in his cardinal's robes. While the Turks were cutting off its head and parading it through the streets, the real cardinal was shipped off to Asia Minor with a number of insignificant prisoners, as a slave and later found safety in Crete. He composed a series of letters describing the events of the siege. He warned of the danger of further expansion of the Turks in the multiple letters and even seems to be the earliest eyewitness to have compared Mehmed II with Alexander the Great. He made his way back to Rome in 1455, and was made Bishop of Sabina, presumably adopting the Latin Rite. Pope Pius II (1458–64) later gave him two titles successively, those of Latin Patriarch of Constantinople and Archbishop of Cyprus, neither of which he could convert into real jurisdiction. He was Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals from October 1461 until his death in 1463. In popular media Cardinal Isidore is portrayed by İzzet Çivril in the 2012 film Fetih 1453. In the film, the Cardinal is depicted as a prisoner after the fall of Constantinople. He is played by Lex Gigeroff in the 2006 film The Conclave. See also Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' (1441 - 1596) Greek scholars in the Renaissance Notes References Further reading Histories of the Council of Florence describe the adventures of Cardinal Isidore. Sergey F. Dezhnyuk, "Council of Florence: The Unrealized Union", 2017. Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Paepste, I (3rd and 4th ed., Freiburg im Br., 1901), 585,