Watch The Odyssey of Western Civilization Lecture #5: Byzantium and the Agents of the Renaissance

When something is characterized as "byzantine," it's generally not a compliment. But Byzantium, a.k.a. Constantinople, gets a bad rap it doesn't deserve. After Rome, the city, fell in 476, Rome the empire lived on with Constantinople as its capital.. When Constantinople finally fell to the Turks, Byzantine scholars fled west and planted the seeds that would flower as the Renaissance.