This chapter provides the topos-theoretic background necessary for understanding the contents of the book; the presentation is self-contained and only assumes a basic familiarity with the language of category theory. The chapter begins by reviewing the basic theory of Grothendieck toposes, including the fundamental equivalence between geometric morphisms and flat functors. Then it presents the notion of first-order theory and the various deductive systems for fragments of first-order logic that will be considered in the course of the book, notably including that of geometric logic. Further, it discusses categorical semantics, i.e. the interpretation of first-order theories in categories possessing ‘enough’ structure. Lastly, the key concept of syntactic category of a first-order theory is reviewed; this notion will be used in Chapter 2 for constructing classifying toposes of geometric theories.