Since the realization, at the beginning of this century, thatthe treatise Speculum musicae had been incorrectly attributed to Jehan des Murs by its firsteditor, Edmond de Coussemaker, the actual author of this voluminous work of music theory from theearly fourteenth century has remained a shadowy figure. The most certain detail of the author'sidentity is his name, contained within an acrostic spelled out over the initials that begin each ofthe seven books of the treatise, rendering the given name IACOBUS. The provenances of the threesurviving manuscript sources, all dating from approximately a century after the proposed date ofSpeculum musicae, suggest an Italian bias to the transmission of the work, but, as physicaldocuments, the manuscripts have yet to yield any clues to the author's origins. The treatiseitself is a bit more helpful. Besides offering the author's name, clues within the text haveallowed for the formulation of the following hypothesis concerning the career of Jacobus: that he wasprobably born in the diocese of Liège, that he was a student in Paris in the late thirteenthcentury, and that he returned to Liège to complete the final books of his treatise, Books 6 and7 of Speculum musicae. In what follows, I will first briefly evaluate the evidence previouslymarshalled to support this hypothesis, and I will then discuss new information pertinent to thebiography of the author.