In the years centering on 1600 in , several distinct shifts emerged in ways of thinking about the purposes, writing and performance of music. Partly these changes were "revolutionary", deliberately instigated by a group of intellectuals in Florence known as the Florentine Camerata, and partly they were "evolutionary", in that precursors of the new Baroque style can be found far back in the Renaissance, and the changes merely built on extant forms and practices. The transitions emanated from the cultural centers of northern Italy, then spread to Rome, France, Germany, and Spain, and lastly reached England