The Renaissance humanism of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was not what most people think of when they use the term humanism today. It was a movement of cultural and intellectual reform that started in Italy with the teachers of the studia humanitatis—the liberal arts—and gradually moved northward. When Calvin was in school, humanism was a strong force in intellectual circles in France. It was favored by the king, Francis I (1494–1547). His sister Marguerite of Navarre (1492–1549),