I listened to a podcast called “12 Byzantine Rulers” a while back. I believe they said a number of people fleeing after Constantinople fell made it into Venice and transplanted a lot of old knowledge that had been locked up and stagnant within the city. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were both heavily influenced by a resurgence of interest in classical work that seems to have started around the exact same time Constantinople fell. I don’t know enough history to know all the reasons in favor or against that argument, but it makes a lot of sense to me that it was a contributing factor.