The Chronographer of Dorotheus was the most widely read book among the Greeks, having gone through thirty reprints from 1631 to 1818, while many manuscripts of this historical book have also survived. From these, it appears that the main part of the book was written around 1570-75. The first printed edition was based on a manuscript that was brought to Venice from Romania by his brother, Zotos Tzigaras, the first sword-bearer of the then ruler of Moldavia-Wallachia. It is no coincidence that this Chronographer was later translated and printed several times in Romanian.

The text referred to in Greek literature as the "Pseudo-Dorotheus" is presented with many supplements from its 30 successive editions and from related Byzantine chronographies. It is a compilation of various chronicles (the various remarkable stories) to which we have added 1680 explanatory footnotes, some images, and bibliography.

Related to the Chronographer of Dorotheus (of 1631) was the "New Synopsis" by Matthew Kigalas, published in 1637, which closely follows the compilation of the main contents of the "Pseudo-Dorotheus," especially those of the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, with variations that we have incorporated into the main text under publication. Essentially, it consists of two different chronicles with a common archetype, written in a non-literary linguistic idiom, often reminiscent of the colloquial language of our ancestors from the generation of 1918.

However, the significance lies in the content and ideology of a book that has nurtured six generations of Greeks. The upcoming published compilation of the Chronographer includes, at the beginning, the Biblical history, focusing on the Middle East, up to the times of Alexander the Great and the Ptolemies, concluding with an account of the Trojan War, to which we chose to add elements of ancient Greek mythology from Matthew Kigalas's corresponding narrative.

This is followed by the history of Rome, from the time of Aeneas to the Great Constantine, with detailed accounts of the successive Roman emperors. The narrative continues with the history of the Byzantine Roman Empire, from its founding to the fall of Constantinople, and continues with the succession of Ottoman sultans up to the days of the compilation of the chronicle. Subsequently, in each new edition, they usually printed an addition to the narrative, updating the text for the period that had elapsed since the previous reprints.

The Byzantine history includes a wealth of tales and "folk narratives" from popular sources that had survived in collective memory in the last decades of the 1500s. The historical text analyzes, among other things, the chronicle of the Comneni with the Crusades and "how the Francs took the City." The body of the mainly Byzantine history of the Chronographer follows a Chronicle of the Morea, written in prose, extending over the events of the period 1204-1439.

Subsequently, in another chapter, the councils of Ferrara and Florence, which led to an agreement for the union of the churches, are extensively described, largely taken from the book of M. Devaris published in Rome in 1577 by the printer Francesco Zanetto. Alongside the stories of the Ottoman Sultans and their descent, a detailed chapter includes the Chronicle of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, which in some of its elements is the only (secondary) historical source we have for what happened on the patriarchal throne up to the patriarchy of Jeremiah the Trano, who went to Moscow accompanied by the Metropolitan of Monemvasia Ieroetheos.

Immediately following the text, we find the chronicle "about when Venice was built, and how many Dukes established it, and how many castles they acquired." Thus, another, parallel view of historical time is completed, where contemporary data necessitate an additional retrospective in the "genealogical chronology" of the Republic of Adria, as it also intersects with the Greek history of "Romania," maintaining a significant presence in the Hellenic region even after the Fall.

The Chronographer concludes with three relatively short chapters: 1. The first: "About the relic of the great Constantine, where his son Constantius brought it from Nicomedia," on whose tomb were the letters within which lay the prophecy of the liberation of Constantinople from the "Blonde race," a version that dates with certainty to 1570, fifteen years after 1555, the time when the prophecies of Agathangelus were found in Milan and translated into Italian. 2. Second: the illustrated method of the "Hand of Solomon" by which we can calculate, with our palms, the Ecliptics, the circles of the Sun and the Moon, and "in how many of March or April Easter is celebrated." 3. And third, a two-page list of the Office of the Roman Kingdom established, according to the Chronographer, by the Great Constantine.

Two centuries after the last reissue in 1818 in Venice of the Historical Chronographer, we deemed it necessary to reintroduce to our reading public a complete text with sufficient explanations that contains, as mentioned earlier, a popularized summary of the first books of the Old Testament, followed by a detailed account of Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Venetian history. A text to which interesting narratives from the chronicles of the patriarchs, the council of Florence, a little-known prose Chronicle of the Morea, as well as many folkloric elements with curious "stories" have been added. The reissue will once again bring close to us the colloquial Greek of the 16th century, a language accessible and understandable in which only four or five books, at most, had been written in the early decades of the 17th century. The initial prefatory note, repeated in each reissue, nevertheless emphasizes to devout Orthodox readers the value of studying the past as a source of moral teachings.