If the period commonly referred to as the Renaissance marks the beginning of the Early Modern period in European history, it nonetheless exists in profound continuity with the Middle Ages. The two periods share common theses, issues, auctores and institutions and participate in a common enterprise: for they both attempt to forge a union out of the impressive remnants of ancient, but pagan, civilization and the living traditions of thought and piety associated with biblical (Jewish and Christian) religion. Even when the Renaissance writers do distance themselves from late medieval practices and thinking, often enough what they are doing is reviving the spirit and language of an earlier Middle Ages in preference to more recent developments. Hence the appropriateness of combining the study of the Renaissance with that of the Middle Ages in a single concentration.