Reformation, and with it the liberation of modern thought.
Emerson has said that every institution is to be regarded as but
the lengthened shadow of some great man: as Islamism of Mahomet,
Puritanism of Calvin, Jesuitism of Loyola, Quakerism of Fox,
Methodism of Wesley, Abolitionism of Clarkson.

Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation--as Luther
did upon modern Germany, and Knox upon Scotland. (18) And if there
be one man more than another that stamped his mind on modern
Italy, it was Dante. During the long centuries of Italian
degradation his burning words were as a watchfire and a beacon to
all true men. He was the herald of his nation's liberty--braving
persecution, exile, and death, for the love of it. He was always
the most national of the Italian poets, the most loved, the most
read. From the time of his death all educated Italians had his
best passages by heart; and the sentiments they enshrined
inspired their lives, and eventually influenced the history
of their nation. "The Italians," wrote Byron in 1821,
"talk Dante, write Dante, and think and dream Dante, at this
moment, to an excess which would be ridiculous, but that he
deserves their admiration." (19)

A succession of variously gifted men in different ages--extending
from Alfred to Albert--has in like manner contributed, by their
life and example, to shape the multiform character of England. Of
these, probably the most influential were the men of the
Elizabethan and Cromwellian, and the intermediate periods--
amongst which we find the great names of Shakspeare, Raleigh,
Burleigh, Sidney, Bacon, Milton, Herbert, Hampden, Pym, Eliot,
Vane, Cromwell, and many more--some of them men of great force,