 After a one-year course in poetics and rhetoric at the Würzburg Jesuit college, Hofmann studied law at the University of Mainz and at the University of Würzburg.In 1777 he moved to Vienna to gain experience at the or Aulic Council, one of the supreme courts of the Holy Roman Empire and became a in 1778.In Vienna, Hofmann was influenced by the enlightened principles of Josephinism.