Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Martin, James (fl.1577)

by Gordon Goodwin

MARTIN, JAMES (fl. 1577), philosophical writer, a native of Dunkeld, Perthshire, is said to have been educated at Oxford. A James Martin, whose college is not mentioned, commenced M.A. at Oxford on 31 March 1522 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 124). He was professor of philosophy at Paris. In 1556 he was proctor of the Germans in the university of Paris (Du Boulay, Hist. Univ. Paris, vi. 490), and in May 1557 was chosen by the same nation to negotiate with the king concerning a tax which he desired to impose on the university, much to its disgust (ib. pp. 490, 518). He subsequently is said to have become professor at Turin. Burton (The Scot Abroad, p. 296) says he was professor at Rome, but this is probably a slip. He was dead by 1584.

Martin wrote a treatise in refutation of some of Aristotle's dogmas entitled 'De prima simplicium & concretorum corporum Generatione … disputatio,' 4to, Turin, 1577. Another edition, with a preface by William Temple, M.A., of King's College, Cambridge, was published at Cambridge in 1584, 8vo, and again at Frankfort in 1589. A reply by Andreas Libavius appeared at Frankfort in 1591.

Other treatises by Martin are vaguely mentioned by Tanner, viz.:

1. 'In Artem Memoriae,' Paris.
2. 'De Intelligentiis Motricibus,' Turin.
3. 'In Libros Aristotelis de Ortu et Interitu,' Paris, 1555,

but none of them appear to be now extant.

[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. 1718, p. 515.]

G. G.