How Did Western Culture Influence Byzantine Culture

The Byzantine culture in Constantinople was incredibly diverse and heavily patronized by the emperors. The Greek community doesn’t become active culturally until the end of 1500’s and mostly in music. That’s when the musical composition that are both secular and religious were created. Greek composers who were trained in the byzantine style of both performance and composition start to contribute greatly to the development of Ottoman classical music. In addition, after the empire collapsed, the scholars and the artists scattered to the fringes of the old byzantine world. The scholars went to Italy and they blended with the Italians and contributed to the Italian Renaissance. On the other hand, the artists went to Crete and they found powerful rich Greeks and they teach Greek Cretans their art. So, Greek becomes a power house for icon production and painting and literature. Byzantine culture production migrated to the fringes but it survived the fall nonetheless. I continued to develop and grow. It incorporated elements from other cultures in particular the western Italian culture. One example is Vitsentzos Kornaros who wrote a romantic epic in the spoken language which byzantine scholars never did.