The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that began in Europe in the 13th century to fight against Obscurantism through the transmission of knowledge. Philosophers, writers and scholars like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke, Newton and Lessing believed that man could think for himself using reason and devoted themselves to criticising the intolerance and abuse of the Church and the State. Diderot and Alembert’s Encyclopédie (Encyclopaedia) was a symbolic work of this movement. Beyond philosophy, Enlightenment ideas affected literature and the arts in spite of opposition by religious and civil authorities.