Edward Gibbon, an English historian, published The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. This is Chapter 63 of that work. He follows Rome from the prosperous age of Trajan and the Antonines, around the year 100, through the fall of the West and on to the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453.

Chapter 63 takes up civil wars, and ruin of the Greek Empire—Reigns of Andronicus, the Elder and Younger, and John Palaeologus—Regency, revolt, reign, and abdication of John Cantacuzene—Establishment of a Genoese colony at Pera or Galata—Their wars with the Empire and city of Constantinople. The footnotes are not in this reading; what you have is the narrative.