Beginning of Essay
By the beginning of the sixteenth century, before the deaths of Michelangelo or even Leonardo da Vinci, the renaissance movement in Italy had pretty much run itself out. In northern Europe, however (in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France, and England) humanis ....

Middle of Essay
.... Yet, as More's Utopia makes clear, the humanists' interests in practical reform were in tension with the humanists' positions as members of the political establishment. They were also courtiers. Nevertheless, let me turn briefly to the humanists ideas for reform as these were put forth by members of . You might at some point wish to consider More's Utopia in this particular historical context. First and foremost, perhaps, the members of the More circle vigorously supported the general humanist trend away from scholasticism and towards making rhetoric the basic subject of the educational curriculum; and for models of rhetoric they turned (as Petrarc ....