Italian versus Northern humanists

While war, plague, famine, and death ravaged Europe, a new culture was developing in Italy. The fourteenth century brought many changes in Italian thought and society. In the fifteenth century, these changes spread out of Italy and influenced Northern European society. Humanism, which is the emphasis on human beings, their achievements, interests, and capabilities, is the outcome of the renaissance attitude of individualism and secularism. Northern Europeans interpreted these Italian ideas in terms of their own traditions, which were somewhat more Christian that those of Italy. The fundamental difference between Christian and Italian humanists is that the northerners looked at humanity as a whole, and tried to reform their society, while the Italians focused more on the present and the glory of the individual.

Northern and Italian humanists believed that a well-educated person must k...