Most biographical studies take a more direct approach to their subject, painting the picture of a man in broad strokes. In Calvin and His Friend, the approach is rather indirect, seeing John Calvin through the perspective of his friends. Yet the shape of the man that emerges in the negative space between their accounts is remarkably full and balanced. Through the eyes of a cross-section of Calvin's friends - from aristocrats to students to doctors, French to Dutch to Italian to Scottish - Machiel A. van den Berg brings together a selection of writings that describe what kind of human being Calvin was, rather than focusing on the things he did.
