The rise of the Ottoman Empire, from their conquest of Constantinople in 1453 to their conquest of Hungary at Mohacs in 1521 to their siege of Vienna in 1683 would have a profound effect on European identity and politics. As the Ottomans rose to power, their knowledge, particularly of Greek and Roman texts and their technology began to spread Westward. At the time they took Constantinople, the eastern Mediterranean was more urban, more literate and more wealthy than any part of Western Europe. As the Ottoman Empire grew into the Balkans toward the heart of Europe, fear, possibly a sense of inferiority, and competition would drive the European Renaissance and slowly, Western Europe would come to be more wealthy, more powerful and more urban. The determination to overpower the Ottomans would drive the Spanish and Portuguese to seek another route to Asia, it may have made the Protestant Reformation more successful by distracting Charles V from his domestic politics, and it inspired the Catholic church to lead the Reconquista in Spain and may have also inspired Pope Leo X to construct St. Peter's Basilica as a statement against this powerful Islamic empire in Eastern Rome.
First Siege of Vienna, 1529
