Giovanni Battista, the most learned musician of the eighteenth century, was born at Bologna on the 25th of April 1706. His father, Antonio Maria Martini, a violinist, taught him very early the elements of music, and to play on the violin. He was then instructed in singing and harpsichord-playing by Padre Predieri, and afterwards in counterpoint by Antonio Ricciari. After the requisite religious studies and training, he took holy orders as a Franciscan on the 11th September 1722. He cultivated the theory and practice of music so successfully, that although only nineteen years old, he was appointed in 1725 chapel-master of the church of St Francis at Bologna. In the composition of religious music he received instructions from Jacopo Perti. He studied mathematics under Zanotti, and devoted much of his time to the reading of ancient and modern works on music. He was constantly collecting such works, and at last was in possession of the most extensive musical library that had ever been formed. The books and MSS. of the Cavaliere Ercole Bottrigari, a distinguished amateur, formed a part of Padre Martini's library; and it has been stated repeatedly that they were left to him as a legacy by Bottrigari—a statement utterly disproved by dates, for Bottrigari died in 1612, and Martini was born in 1706. At Bologna Padre Martini opened a school of musical composition, in which several celebrated musicians were trained. Among his best pupils were Padre Paolucci, Padre Sablatini, Rutini, Zanotti, Sarti, the Abate Ottani, and the Abate Stanislao Mattei. Padre Martini always declared his preference for the ancient Roman school of musical composition. His school became so celebrated throughout Europe, that the best musicians consulted him on doubtful points. Burney, in his musical tour through France and Italy in 1770, gives a most pleasing account of the amiable manners and character of Padre Martini. After long and patient suffering under a complication of diseases, Martini expired at Bologna on the 4th of August 1784. The greater part of his compositions for the church are unpublished. In 1734 he published some church music for four voices, and in 1736 sonatas for organ and harpsichord. Of his sonatas for organ and harpsichord, published in 1747, Clementi has given several in the second volume of his Practical Harmony. In 1763 Martini published chamber duets for different voices. His most important works are his Storia della Musica, of which three volumes only appeared, and his Saggio di Contrappunto. The former exhibits prodigious reading and industry, but is written in a dry style, and is overloaded with matter belonging to the regions of conjecture. The fourth volume, which he left incomplete, and which has not been published, was to contain inquiries regarding the music of the middle ages, down to the eleventh century. At the beginning and end of each chapter of his musical history Martini gives enigmatic canons, some of which are exceedingly puzzling. Cherubini resolved the whole of them. His Saggio di Contrappunto is a very learned and valuable work, in two volumes 4to, and contains numerous examples by the best masters, with excellent explanatory notes. It treats chiefly of the tonalities of the plain-chant, and of counterpoints constructed upon them. Besides several controversial works published by Martini, he drew up a Dictionary of Ancient Musical Terms, which was published in the second volume of the collection of G. B. Doni's works, in three volumes folio. He published also a work on The Theory of Numbers as applied to Music; and a paper on the Use of Geometrical Progression in Music." (G. F. G.)