The picture of Italian humanism radiating out to other countries and innovating their intellectual climates is an attractive one. It conforms to historical image of the Italian Renaissance itself - an innovative, expansive, and persuasive cultural campaign. If a fifteenth-century musical "rebirth" or even "Renaissance" can be diagnosed outside Italy, it was originally unaided by humanism, let alone Italian humanism. Musical humanists of the period working outside Italy had in common that they applied classical modes of thinking to musical practices around them, rather than advocating new types of music or exploring music theory. Three topics of the humanist engagements with music have left a trail in music history. The first was a so-called "musical rhetoric". Second, humanist influence encouraged musicians to set a greater variety of Latin poetic forms. Finally, northern humanism developed the modern understanding of composed music as a "completed and independent work".