ABSTRACT
Johannes Reuchlin was born in Pforzheim in the Margraviate of Baden in 1455 and died in the Duchy of Württemberg in 1522.1 He was one of the first experts north of the Alps on the Greek and Hebrew languages, and earned the title “the great German humanist,” on account of his studies and publications.2 He is credited with having established humanist school drama in central Europe, with having been the first Christian cabbalist, and with having fought forcefully against the threatened destruction of Jewish literature.3 For this last commitment, the papal court ultimately condemned him. Throughout his life, Reuchlin thought that his assigned task was to transmit knowledge of Greek antiquity, whose reception in Germany he decisively influenced.4 His name is connected even more directly with the first Christian studies of the Hebrew language. He has become known as the father of Christian Hebraism in central Europe, since he initiated a new era of Christian exegesis of the bible based on the original Hebrew text.5 Reuchlin
1 Stefan Rhein, “Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522), Ein deutscher ‘uomo universale’,” in Paul Gerhard Schmidt (ed.), Humanismus im deutschen Südwesten: Biographische Profile (Sigmaringen, 1993), 59-75; Stefan Rhein, “Reuchlin (Capnio), Johannes,” in Laetitia Boehm et al. (eds), Biographisches Lexikon der Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München, Teil I: Ingolstadt-Landshut 1472-1826 (Berlin, 1998), 338-41. For information about his grave at St. Leonhard’s church, Stuttgart see: Reinhold Rau, “Über eine Sammlung von Inschriften des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte 23 (1964): 418-38, here 431; Walther Ludwig, “Nachlese zur Biographie und Genealogie von Johannes Reuchlin,” Südwestdeutsche Blätter für Familien-und Wappenkunde 21 (1996): 437-45, here 438-40.
