In an incredible historical convergence, the exact same years that Johannes Gutenberg was perfecting movable type to print his Bible in Mainz, Germany, the Ottoman Empire breached the walls of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey), destroying the Byzantine Empire. As the ancient capital fell, hundreds of Greek scholars fled westward into Italy, carrying rare classical manuscripts at the precise moment that Europe was developing the technology needed to mass-produce texts.

This massive convergence of technology and displaced classical knowledge directly triggered the explosion of the European Renaissance. The sudden availability of cheap printing presses combined with rediscovered Greek poetic texts completely revolutionized literacy, publishing, and poetic distribution worldwide.