Crossing the paths of each other: Renaissance Italy and Byzantium

Byzantine-Western intellectual relations were evolved during a long chronological period, from the fourth to the sixteenth century. Closely related at the beginning, Byzantine and Latin cultures became increasingly estranged to each other with the passing of time, especially after the ecclesiastical schism of 1054, and because of it. The growing alienation between East and West came to its climax with the occupation of the Byzantine capital by Western armies of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Ironically, and in spite of the overt hostility after this unfortunate and tragic event of the Latin occupation of the Greek East, it appears that the two worlds came into a much closer contact. Necessary political, social and economic interaction of the two worlds, especially during the period 1261-1453, Byzantine expediency manifested especially in an intense, inventive and extensive Byzantine diplomatic activity in the big European centers, the attraction which the cosmopolitan Constantinople exercised upon the Italian humanists and above all the personal characteristics of charismatic Byzantine intellectuals and their contribution to a breakdown of prejudice towards the West, are some of the factors which brought about the phenomenon of a two-way cultural interaction and crossing between Renaissance Italy and a waning Byzantium