But they promised to accomplish master-works of incalculable magnitude in wider provinces of exploration and investigation.

And had this progress not been checked, Italy would have crowned and completed the process commenced by humanism.

In addition to the intellectual culture already given to Europe, she might have revealed right methods of mental analysis and physical research.

For this further step in the discovery of man and of the world, the nation was prepared to bring an army of new pioneers into the field--the philosophers of the south, and the physicists of the Lombard universities.
Humanism effected the emancipation of intellect by culture.

It called attention to the beauty and delightfulness of nature, restored man to a sense of his dignity, and freed him from theological authority.