REUCHLIN, JOHANNES, called CAPNION. — German humanist, b. at Pforzheim on 22 February 1455, d. at Bad Leibenzell on 30 June 1522. He initiated the study of Hebrew in support of biblical studies. He taught at Ingolstadt and Tübingen. From 1502 to 1513 he was a triumvir of the Swabian League. He travelled extensively (he was in Italy three times: 1482, ’90, ’98).
His Rudimenta hebraica (1506), followed by De accentibus et orthographia linguae Hebraicae (1518), mark a date in the history of philology and biblical exegesis. In Dialogus de recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronunciatione (1519), he upheld against Erasmus (v.) the Byzantine pronunciation of ancient Greek. He also concerned himself with mystical-theosophical questions and Judaism (De verbo miriphico, 1494; De arte cabalistica, 1517).
When the Dominican J. Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew, proposed the destruction of almost all Hebrew texts in order to disperse Judaism, R., as a member of the commission convened by Emperor Maximilian (1510), gave an opposing opinion, thereby unintentionally provoking a decade-long controversy that divided Germany into two camps (the humanists and the theologians) and reached the Roman ecclesiastical tribunal (1520); the latter imposed silence on R. and ordered the destruction of his Augenspiegel, published in 1511 in response to the accusations and calumnies levelled against him by Pfefferkorn. Erasmus also took part in the controversy in R.’s defence and, moreover, in the year of R.’s death, wrote a moving Apostheosis about him.