This book presents a revisionist examination of the development of European intellectual culture between the high middle ages and 1550. It draws particular attention to the roles of Marsilio Ficino and Erasmus and analyzes major aspects of the work of Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham, before moving on to Petrarch, Valla, Pico della Mirandola, the devotio moderna, More, Luther, Calvin and their contemporaries. It establishes radically new perspectives on the Renaissance and the Reformation, and on the continuity between them.