Johann Reuchlin (January 29, 1455 - 1522) was a German humanist and Hebrew scholar. January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... // Events February 9 - Wars of the Roses: Richard, Duke of York dismissed as Protector February 23 - Johannes Gutenberg prints the first Bible on a printing press May 22 - Wars of the Roses: First Battle of St Albans - Richard, Duke of York and his ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick defeat... Events January 9 - Adrian Dedens becomes Pope Adrian VI. February 26 - Execution by hanging of Cuauhtémoc, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan under orders of conquistador Hernán Cortés. ... Humanism is a system of thought that defines a socio-political doctrine (-ism) whose bounds exceed those of locally developed cultures, to include all of humanity and all issues common to human beings. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than 7 million people, mainly in Israel, the West Bank, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ...

Early life

He was born at Pforzheim in the Black Forest, where his father was an official of the Dominican monastery. According to the fashion of the time, his name was graecicized by his Italian friends into Capnion, a nickname which Reuchlin used as a sort of transparent mask when he introduced himself as an interlocutor in the De Verbo Mirifico. He remained fond of his home town; he constantly calls himself Phorcensis, and in the De Verbo he ascribes to Pforzheim his inclination towards literature. Pforzheim is a town of 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-west Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. ... A map of Germany, showing the Black Forest in red. ... The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Tom is short for Thomas). ...

Here he began his Latin studies in the monastery school, and, though in 1470 he was a short time in Freiburg, that university seems to have taught him little. Reuchlin's career as a scholar appears to have turned almost on an accident; his fine voice gained him a place in the household of Charles I, Margrave of Baden, and soon, having some reputation as a Latinist, he was chosen to accompany Frederick, the third son of the prince, to the University of Paris. Frederick was some years his junior, and was destined for an ecclesiastical career. This new connection did not last long, but it determined the course of Reuchlin's life. He now began to learn Greek, which had been taught in the French capital since 1470, and he also attached himself to the leader of the Paris realists, Jean Heynlin, or a Lapide (d. 1496), a worthy and learned man, whom he followed to the vigorous young university of Basel in 1474. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg was founded 1457 in Freiburg by the Habsburgs. ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The historic University of Paris (French: Université de Paris) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganized as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). ... Johann Heynlin (variously spelled Heynlein, Henelyn, Henlin, Hélin, Hemlin, Hegelin, Steinlin; and translated as Jean à Lapide, Jean La Pierre (Lapierre, De la Pierre), Johannes Lapideus, Johannes de Lapide) (ca. ...

Teaching and writing career

At Basel Reuchlin took his master's degree (1477), and began to lecture with success, teaching a more classical Latin than was then common in German schools, and explaining Aristotle in Greek. His studies in this language had been continued at Basel under Andronicus Contoblacas, and here he formed the acquaintance of the bookseller, Johann Amorbach, for whom he prepared a Latin lexicon (Vocabularius Breviloquus, 1st ed, 1475-76), which ran through many editions. This first publication, and Reuchlin's account of his teaching at Basel in a letter to Cardinal Adrian (Adriano Castellesi) in February 1518, show that he had already found his life's work. He was a born teacher, and this work was not to be done mainly from the professor's chair. The University of Basel (German: Universität Basel) is located at Basel, Switzerland. ... Aristotle, marble copy of bronze by Lysippos. ... Location within Switzerland Basel (English traditionally: Basle , German: Basel , French: Bâle , Italian: Basilea ) is Switzerlands third most populous city (166,563 inhabitants (2004); 690,000 inhabitants in the conurbation stretching across the immediate cantonal and national boundaries made Basel Switzerlands second-largest urban area as of 2003). ... A lexicon is usually a list of words together with additional word-specific information, i. ... Adriano Castellesi, also known as Cardinal Adrian, Corneto, Adrian of Castello or Adriano de Castello (born ~1460 in Corneto; died ~1521) was an Italian cardinal and writer. ... Events A plague of tropical fire ants devastates crops on Hispaniola. ...

Reuchlin soon left Basel to seek further Greek training with George Hieronymus at Paris, and to learn to write a fair Greek hand that he might support himself by copying manuscripts. And now he felt that he must choose a profession. His choice fell on law, and he was thus led to the great school of Orléans (1478), and finally to Poitiers, where he became licentiate in July 1481. From Poitiers Reuchlin went in December 1481 to Tübingen with the intention of becoming a teacher in the university, but his friends recommended him to Count Eberhard of Württemberg, who was about to journey to Italy and required an interpreter. Reuchlin was selected for this post, and in February 1482 left Stuttgart for Florence and Rome. The journey lasted but a few months, but it brought the German scholar into contact with several learned Italians, especially at the Medicean Academy in Florence; his connexion with the count became permanent, and after his return to Stuttgart he received important posts at Eberhard's court. Law (from the Old Norse lagu) in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who do... Orléans cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Cross, built from 1278 to 1329; after being pillaged by Huguenots in the 1560s, the Bourbon kings restored it in the 17th century. ... Location within France Poitiers (population 85,000) is a small city located in west central France. ... Tübingen, Neckar front Tübingen, an old university city of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is situated 20 miles southwest of Stuttgart, on a ridge between the River Neckar and the Ammer. ... Events Portuguese fortify Fort Elmina on the Gold Coast Tizoc rules the Aztecs Diogo Cão, a Portuguese navigator, becomes the first European to sail up the Congo. ... Stuttgart, a city located in southern Germany, is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg with a population of approximately 590,000 as of September 2005 in the city and around 3 million in the metropolitan area. ... Founded 59 BC as Florentia Region Tuscany Mayor Leonardo Domenici (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  102 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 356,000 almost 500,000 3,453/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Latitude Longitude 43°47 N 11°15 E www. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area  - City Proper  1285 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2. ...

About this time he appears to have married, but little is known of his married life. He left no children; but in later years his sister's grandson Philipp Melanchthon was like a son to him till the Reformation estranged them. In 1490 he was again in Italy. Here he saw Pico della Mirandola, to whose Cabbalistic doctrines he afterwards became heir, and made a friend of the pope's secretary, Jakob Questenberg, which was of service to him in his later troubles. Again in 1492 he was employed on an embassy to the emperor Frederick at Linz, and here he began to read Hebrew with the emperor's Jewish physician Jakob ben Jehiel Loans. Loans's instruction laid the basis of that thorough knowledge which Reuchlin afterwards improved on his third visit to Rome in 1498 by the instruction of Obadja Sforno of Cesena. In. 1494 his rising reputation had been greatly enhanced by the publication of De Verbo Mirifico. Portrait of Philipp Melanchthon, by Lucas Cranach the Elder. ... The Protestant Reformation was a movement which emerged in the 16th century as a series of attempts to reform the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe. ... Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (February 24, 1463 – November 17, 1494) was an Italian Renaissance humanist philosopher and scholar. ... Map of Austria, locating Linz Linz is a city and Statutarstadt in northeast Austria, on the Danube river. ... Classic Jewish commentator. ... Cesena (ancient Caesena) is a city in the Italy, south of Ravenna and west of Rimini, on the Savio River, population (july 2004) 93,110, co-chief of the Province of Forli-Cesena. ...

In 1496 Eberhard of Württemberg died, and enemies of Reuchlin had the ear of his successor, Duke Eberhard. He was glad, therefore, hastily to follow the invitation of Johann von Dalberg (1445-1503), the scholarly bishop of Worms, and flee to Heidelberg, which was then the seat of the "Rhenish Society." In this court of letters Reuchlin's appointed function was to make translations from the Greek authors, in which his reading was already extremely wide. Though Reuchlin had no public office as teacher, he was for much of his life the real centre of all Greek and Hebrew teaching in Germany. To carry out this work he provided a series of aids for beginners and others. He never published a Greek grammar, but he had one in manuscript for use with his pupils, and also published several little elementary Greek books. Reuchlin, it may be noted, pronounced Greek as his native teachers had taught him to do, i.e. in the modern Greek fashion. This pronunciation, which he defends in Dialogus de Recta Lat. Graecique Serm. Pron. (1519), came to be known, in contrast to that used by Erasmus, as the Reuchlinian. 1496 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... // Worms (pronounced ) is a city in the southwest of Germany. ... Heidelberg (halfway between Stuttgart and Frankfurt) is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. ... Desiderius Erasmus in 1523 Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, probably 1466 – July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. ...

At Heidelberg Reuchlin had many private pupils, among whom Franz von Sickingen is the best known name. With the monks he had never been liked; at Stuttgart also his great enemy was the Augustinian Conrad Holzinger. On this man he took a scholar's revenge in his first Latin comedy Sergius, a satire on worthless monks and false relics. Through Dalberg, Reuchlin came into contact with Philip, elector palatine of the Rhine, who employed him to direct the studies of his sons, and in 1498 gave him the mission to Rome which has been already noticed as fruitful for Reuchlin's progress in Hebrew. He came back laden with Hebrew books, and found when he reached Heidelberg that a change of government had opened the way for his return to Stuttgart, where his wife had remained all along. His friends had now again the upper hand, and knew Reuchlin's value. In 1500, or perhaps in 1502, he was given a very high judicial office in the Swabian League, which he held till 1512, when he retired to a small estate near Stuttgart. Franz von Sickingen (1481 - May 7, 1523) was a German knight, one of the most notable figures of the first period of the Reformation. ... A Roman Catholic monk A monk is a person who practices monasticism, adopting a strict religious and ascetic lifestyle, usually in community with others following the same path. ... The Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo (died AD 430), are several Roman Catholic monastic orders and congregations of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of Saint Augustine. ...

Hebrew studies and Reuchlin's advocacy

For many years Reuchlin had been increasingly absorbed in Hebrew studies, which had for him more than a mere philological interest. Though he was always a devout Catholic, and even took the habit of an Augustinian monk when he felt that death was near, he was too thorough a humanist to be a blind follower of the church. He knew the abuses of the monastic system, and was interested in the reform of preaching as shown in his De Arte Predicandi (1503)—a book which became a sort of preacher's manual; but above all as a scholar he was eager that the Bible should be better known, and could not tie himself to the authority of the Vulgate. Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... The Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo (died AD 430), are several Roman Catholic monastic orders and congregations of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of Saint Augustine. ... The Vulgate Bible is an early 5th century translation of the Bible into Latin made by St. ...

The key to the Hebraea veritas was the grammatical and exegetical tradition of the medieval rabbis, especially of David Kimhi, and when he had mastered this himself he was resolved to open it to others. In 1506 appeared his epoch-making De Rudimentis Hebraicis—grammar and lexicon—mainly after Kimhi, yet not a mere copy of one man's teaching. The edition. was costly and sold slowly. One great difficulty was that the wars of Maximilian I in Italy prevented Hebrew Bibles coming into Germany. But for this also Reuchlin found help by printing the Penitential Psalms with grammatical explanations (1512), and other helps followed from time to time. But his Greek studies had interested him in those fantastical and mystical systems of later times with which the Cabbala has no small affinity. Following Pico, he seemed to find in the Cabbala a profound theosophy which might be of the greatest service for the defence of Christianity and the reconciliation of science with the mysteries of faith--an unhappy delusion indeed, but one not surprising in that strange time of ferment. Reuchlin's mystico-cabbalistic ideas and objects were expounded in the De Verbo Mirifico, and finally in the De Arte Cabbalistica (1517). Rabbi (Classical Hebrew רִבִּי ribbÄ«;; modern Ashkenazi and Israeli רַבִּי rabbÄ«) in Judaism, means teacher, or more literally great one. The word Rabbi is derived from the Hebrew root-word RaV, which in biblical Hebrew means great or distinguished, (in knowledge). In the ancient Judean schools the sages were addressed as רִבִּי (Ribbi... David Qimchi (sometimes written David Kimchi) (1160-1235) was judaic rabbi also known as RaDaK and a son of rabbi Joseph Kimchi. ... Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria Maximilian I of Bavaria This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The tree of life Kabbalah (קבלה Reception, Standard Hebrew Qabbala, Tiberian Hebrew Qabbālāh; also written variously as Cabala, Cabalah, Cabbala, Cabbalah, Kabala, Kabalah, Kabbala, Qabala, Qabalah) is a religious philosophical system claiming an insight into divine nature. ... De Arte Cabbalistica is a 1517 text by Johann Reuchlin that deals with his thoughts on Kabbalah. ...

Many of his contemporaries thought that the first step to the conversion of the Jews was to take away their books. This view was advocated by Johannes Pfefferkorn (1469-1521). Pfefferkorn's plans were backed by the Dominicans of Cologne; and in 1509 he obtained the emperor's authority to confiscate all Jewish books directed against the Christian faith. Armed with this mandate, he visited Stuttgart and asked Reuchlin's help as a jurist and expert in putting it into execution. Reuchlin evaded the demand, mainly because the mandate lacked certain formalities, but he could not long remain neutral. The execution of Pfefferkorn's schemes led to difficulties and to a new appeal to Maximilian. Johannes (Josef) Pfefferkorn (1469-1523) was a German Christian theologian writer who converted from Judaism and actively preached against the Jews. ... Cologne (German: ▶ (help· info) [kœln]; Kölsch: Kölle) is Germanys fourth largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. ...

In 1510 Reuchlin was summoned in the name of the emperor to give his opinion on the suppression of the Jewish books. His answer is dated from Stuttgart, October 6, 1510; in it he divides the books into six classes-apart from the Bible which no one proposed to destroy—and, going through each class, he shows that the books openly insulting to Christianity are very few and viewed as worthless by most Jews themselves, while the others are either works necessary to the Jewish worship, which was licensed by papal as well as imperial law, or contain matter of value and scholarly interest which ought not to be sacrificed because they are connected with another faith than that of the Christians. He proposed that the emperor should decree that for ten years there be two Hebrew chairs at every German university for which the Jews should furnish books. 1510 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... October 6 is the 279th day of the year (280th in Leap years). ... The Bible (tanak/h in hebrew language) (sometimes The Holy Bible, The Book, Good Book, Word of God, The Word, or Scripture), from Greek (τα) βιβλια, (ta) biblia, (the) books, is the classical name for the Hebrew Bible of Judaism or the combination of the Old Testament and New Testament of Christianity...

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.