In General, the term refers to a period of intellectual history of Europe, also known as "the age of reason, since the peak in the seventeenth and eighteenth century (and thus largely coincide with the period of Baroque art). The highest enlightenment ideal was the independence of mind-regardless of religious superstition, arbitrary power or inherited configurable. Exemplary figures (among many others) include Voltaire, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Jefferson.