At
Basel, Reuchlin took his master's degree in 1477 and began to lecture, teaching a more classical Latin than was then common in German schools, and explaining
Aristotle in Greek. He continued his Greek studies at Basel under
Andronicus Contoblacas. In Basel he made the acquaintance of the bookseller
Johann Amerbach, for whom he prepared a Latin
lexicon (
Vocabularius Breviloquus, 1st edition, 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. By 1477, Reuchlin had left Basel to seek further Greek training with
George Hermonymus in 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
local university, but his friends recommended him to Count
Eberhard of Württemberg, who was about to travel 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 connection with the count became permanent, and after his return to Stuttgart he received important posts at Eberhard's court. 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 until the
Reformation estranged them. In 1490, he was again in Italy. Here he saw
Pico della Mirandola, to whose
Kabbalistic doctrines he afterward 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, whose instruction laid the basis of that thorough knowledge which Reuchlin afterward improved on his third visit to Rome in 1498 by the instruction of
Obadja Sforno of Cesena. In 1494, his rising reputation was greatly enhanced by the publication of
De Verbo Mirifico. In 1496, Duke Eberhard I of Württemberg died, and enemies of Reuchlin had the ear of his successor, Duke Heinrich of Württemberg (formerly Heinrich Count of Württemberg-Mömpelgard). 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 a 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
De recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronuntiatione (1528), came to be known, in contrast to that used by
Desiderius Erasmus, as the
Reuchlinian. 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, his great adversary 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, Count 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 until 1512, when he retired to a small estate near Stuttgart. ==Hebrew studies and advocacy==