During the late 1400s, an important shift in the spiritual and factual orientations of humankind began to take place, as Christian teleology became challenged by a worldly anthropology. Whereas before, God and religious concerns held sway in the world, now secular matters came to preoccupy the lives and fears of humankind and became the center of attention. As Georges Duby observes, “there can be no doubt that a subjective experience of the presence of evil did exist; but, as has often been observed, the most frightening demons are those within.” Duby's comment captures the temper of an individualistic era, one empowering humankind by validating its authority to achieve progress — while providing subject matter for moralists.

Culturally, this was a time of brilliant accomplishments in scholarship, literature, science, and the arts, and the beginning of a revolution in commerce. The Renaissance first appeared in Italy, where relative political stability, economic expansion, wide contact with other cultures, and a flourishing urban civilization provided the background for a new view of the world. The humanist emphasis on the individual was typified in the ideal of the Renaissance man, the man of universal genius, best exemplified by Leonardo da Vinci. Soon, the northern states, above all France, benefited from and adopted the ideas, practices, and world view of the Italian Renaissance. Geographic exploration — as well as the first investigations into mental processes and the human behavioral microcosm — were now underway.