The study investigates four areas in which the Augustinian presence was felt throughout the Renaissance: psychology, epistemology, the arts, and politics (one chapter is dedicated to each area). Augustine’s intellectual and spiritual development is interpreted as consisting of an early Plotinian period (ca. 386-396), and a later Pauline period (ca. 386-430). These influences resulted in two partially contradictory perspectives: one predominantly vertical (incorporeal and a-historical), the other more horizontal (taking into account the vicissitudes of time and history). The argument of the study is that the Plotinian and Pauline paradigms influenced the Renaissance in different ways, traceable in its literature. Without pretending comprehensiveness, the study follows a rough chronological outline. After an introduction that investigates Augustine’s development, the first chapter centers on Petrarch while the last three have Edmund Spenser as their special focus. Chapters two and four have a broader perspective that in addition to Spenser take in seminal thinkers from Ficino and Luther to Greville and Hooker.