Johann Valentin Andrere (1586-1654) was a multi-faceted product of late Reformation Germany. A theologian who was firmly committed to the Lutheran confession, he could yet see very c1early the flaws in his church and argue for their reform; without being an ecumenicist in the modern sense, he yet admired many aspects of the society he observed in Calvinist Geneva, and he recognised the outstanding merit of individual Catholic scholars. A linguist and a lover of art and music, he was the friend of scientists and an enthusiastic student of mathematics who held that science leads both to an...