[Destro]

This was the source of Europe's exposure to Plato's and Aristotle's writings during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

That is false. The West was exposed to the classics via the refugee scholars from Constantinople when that city fell to the Turks.

[Poe White Trash]

My understanding was that once the Italian and other scholars got their hands on the original Greek manuscipts brought by — or bought from! — the fleeing Byzantines, they realized how *awful* the Arabic-language translations were. The Arabic manuscripts were afterwards ignored, and Greek editions of the Greek classics were published forthwith.