There is a perennial myth that, after the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople and put an end to the Christian empire of Byzantium in 1453, venerable scholars escaped from the city carrying copies of the ancient Greek classics under their arms. Arriving as refugees in Italy, they allegedly kickstarted Greek studies in the Renaissance. Modern scholarship has done much to undermine this romantic story, showing that many Italian scholars acquired their Greek without any assistance from itinerant Byzantines. Even so, the old story has not been exploded completely. As this lecture will show, Byzantines exiles did have an impact on the development of Greek studies in Renaissance Italy and the reality is perhaps more interesting than the myth.