With the start of the Renaissance in Italy, Europe was ushered into an era of renewed learning not seen since the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire. Yet, why did it take over one thousand years and several separate Renaissances for Europe to witness this renewal of both learning and innovation? The most likely answer lies in the fact that the Italian Renaissance began after the Mongols had conquered much of the western world. In the thirteenth century the Mongols charged out of Central Asia to conquer much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The aftermath of this conquest was the Mongol peace or Pax Mongolica. This Mongol peace saw the reopening of the Silk Road, and the introduction of new technologies and more deadly ways to wage war. By examining the effects of the Mongol peace by researching the works of modern historians such as Peter Jackson along with the works of Muslim and European scholars such as al-Hasan ar-Rammah, a Muslim engineer, this paper will contend that the Mongols and their successor states, the Ottoman empire, were the true cause of the Italian Renaissance as well as other effects the Mongol conquests had on the creation of modern Europe.