> Some of it had just reappeared in the XV century, largely through translations of Arabic books; I thought it was mainly the Greek refugees fleeing from the B

> Some of it had just reappeared in the XV century, largely through translations of Arabic books; I thought it was mainly the Greek refugees fleeing from the Byzantine empire who “kickstarted” the Renaissance? Of course all the pillaging the by the Venetians etc. as well. A lot of Greek texts that survived the Sack of Constantinople ended up in Western Europe. Regardless, most “Greek knowledge” that we know of survived in the Greek half of the Roman Empire which remained a part of the “Christian Civilization”. In fact it was the undisputed center of it until the 800s and in many ways much later. I’m not entirely downplaying the Arab influence which was very significant as well (especially considering that the Orthodox Church wasn’t really that supportive about the preservation of some philosophical texts). Also it started much earlier than the 15th century, the translation of various Greek and Arab texts into Latin was well underway in the 1100s and 1200s, following the Reconquista which was effectively over by the 1300s, and the conquest Sicily.