[LeGrande]

What "sparked the Renaissance" were the boat loads of ancient texts, preserved in the Byzantine Empire, that were transported to the West after the sack of Constantanople.

Then why didn't the Renaissance start in the 1200's? Why did it take over 200 years and knowledge and information from the Chinese before it actually started?

[Skooz]

Then why didn't the Renaissance start in the 1200's? Why did it take over 200 years and knowledge and information from the Chinese before it actually started?

Huh?

Constantanople fell in 1453. The archives of antiquity (ancient Greece, mainly) that had been meticulously preserved by the Easter Orthodox Church was then transported to the West.

Then, the Renaissance happened.

The Chinese had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the Renaissance.