"

Sorry about that. I was on the ""amateur"" side, because he so clearly fits the definition in the technical sense: he was never paid to do math. However, I just asked Google Books for ""fermat was a mathematician"" and ""fermat was an amateur mathematician""; both queries primarily showed RS math books, but the first gave 151 hits and the second 17. So unless someone can come up with a counterargument, I guess he should be called a mathematician tout simple, with clarification elsewhere that he earned his sous lawyering.   "