In the sixteenth century, Europe experienced many changes. The Renaissance period brought change in art, scholarship, education and literature. The progressive flow of change originated in Italy with the revival of ancient works. The Italians had at their disposal the remains of one of the most powerful and advanced empires that controlled the world. An empire far older once had dwelled in a distant neighbour, Greece, and with the conquering of this country in the late 15th century by the Ottoman Empire, many knowledgeable Greeks travelled and settled in parts of Italy. The philosophies and ideas of both empires merged resulting in humanism, an intellectual movement which promotes the notion of the individual as an entity, responsible for his