Genealogia Mariae. A Hebrew Exercise in Johannes Reuchlin's De rudimentis Hebraicis

The article presents and analyzes the Genealogia Mariae, a genealogy of Christ offered by Johannes Reuchlin as an exercise in his Hebrew primer De Rudimentis Hebraicis, published in Pforzheim in 1506. Reuchlin declares that the familiarity of the reader with the genealogy of Christ, read during mass, will help him/her to learn the pronunciation of Hebrew consonants and vowels. What is interesting is that the genealogy presented in vocalized Hebrew is not the one offered by Luke nor the alternative one, found in the Gospel of Matthew: it purports explicitly to be the Genealogy of Mary. The history of this curious text, its ultimate origin in Annius of Viterbo falsifications and the Fortleben of this "document" are traced and critically discussed.