Martinez, Crisostomo

1. Dates

Born: Valenica, 1638

Died: Flanders, 1694

Dateinfo: Dates Certain

Lifespan: 56

2. Father

Occupation: No Information

No information on financial status.

3. Nationality

Birth: Spanish

Career: Spanish, French

Death: Belgian

4. Education

Schooling: No University

Clearly no university education. He was born into an artisan family and was apprenticed as a painter-engraver- furniture decorator.

5. Religion

Affiliation: Catholic by assumption

6. Scientific Disciplines

Primary: Anatomy, Physiology, Microscopy

Subordinate: Embryology

His microscopical anatomical work, especially of bone structure, puts him among the leading early microscopists.

7. Means of Support

Primary: Miscellaneous, Patronage

Until about forty, Martinez was known as an engraver and painter.

About 1680 he began to work on an anatomical atlas, for the completion of which he obtained (with the assistance of the authorities in Valenica and its university) royal support in 1686.

He went to Paris, in 1687 where he resided in the Collège de Montaigue and was in touch with Parisian scientific circles.

Because of the War of the League of Augsburg, he was accused of spying and had to leave Paris for Flanders in 1690. There is no firm knowledge of him after that except for an assertion by one who knew him that he died in 1694.

8. Patronage

Types: City Magistrates, Court

See the group that got his subvention from the royal government.

9. Technological Involvement

Types: None Known

10. Scientific Societies

Memberships: None

He was in informal touch with university circles in Valencia, and then with relevant people in the Académie in Paris. No formal society.

Sources

1. José Maria Lopez Piñero, et al., Diccionaria historico de la ciencia moderna en España, 2 vols. (Barcelona: Ediciones Peninsula, 1983). Lopez Piñero, biographical introduction to El Atlas anatomico de C. Martinez, 2nd ed. (Valencia, 1982), pp. 19-68. This certainly looks like the definitive account.

Not Available and Not Consulted

1. P. Demaitre, "Un anatomiste espagnol à Paris au XVIIe siecle. Martinez," Médicine de France, no. 154 (1964), 10-15.
2. J. Vives Ciscar, Bosquejor biografico del pintor y grabador valenciano C. Martines, (Valencia, 1890).

Compiled by:

Richard S. Westfall

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Indiana University

Note: the creators of the Galileo Project and this catalogue cannot answer email on geneological questions.