Uriel, Archbishop of Mainz, was one of…

Uriel, Archbishop of Mainz, was one of ten children of Hans von Gemmingen (1431–1487).

He had become entangled in the Pfefferkorn controversy in 1510, after Johannes Pfefferkorn seized and desired to burn Jewish books.

Gemmingen and the consultant Johannes Reuchlin assigned by him do not see a danger to the Christian faith in the writings used by Jews.

He appoints the Jewish physician Beyfuss on May 10, 1513, has the rabbi over all Jews in the Mainzer state.

Both parties to the Pfefferkorn controversy are in June 1513 silenced by the emperor.

The argument over the books will run beyond Uriel's death in 1514, however, and will not be ultimately settled until 1520.

Uriel is supposed to have killed a cellar master in anger shortly before his own reputed death after catching the man stealing wine.

Rumors suggested that he may have then faked his own death, and that the body buried in Mainz Cathedral was instead that of the cellar master, with Uriel afterwards fleeing to Italy where he died years later.

However the tomb will be reopened in 1724, where a corpse will be found with the expected adornments of an archbishop; the matter is still considered unsettled.