#69 – Gutenberg Part 5

Commercial opportunities for a printing press went beyond books. One of those was the Fall of Constantinople. In 1453, the Ottoman Empire lead by 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II defeated the army of Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine Emperor. To tell this story we also need to talk about The Great Schism, how and why Christianity split into east and west camps. Because there’s nothing Jesus loves more than a little bit of Christian on Christian violence.

Om Podcasten

Starting in Florence in the 14th century, a new era began to emerge in the West. People like Petrarch, who re-discovered Cicero’s lost letters, and the new humanists - who valued the study of classical antiquity - ushered in a rebirth, or as we know it today, a “renaissance" - in the study of the arts, the sciences, philosophy, and the theatre. They rediscovered what it meant to be human.