The Alchemical Mass of Nicolaus Melchior Cibinensis: Text,Identity and Speculations

Abstract

A mysterious author from early sixteenth-century Transylvania, Nicolaus Melchior Cibinensis, adopted a rather unusual literary genre for elaborating his ideas on alchemical science. His Processus sub forma missae, dedicated to Wladislas, King of Hungary and Bohemia, is a curious incorporation of the alchemical process into the framework of the Holy Mass. This text — the attribution of which has provoked many debates — has been well known in the alchemical tradition; its Christian symbolism was even analysed by Carl Gustav Jung. This paper discusses the main arguments of the ongoing debate over the identity of Melchior (whether he was identical with the Hungarian Archbishop, Nicolaus Olah), presents some new findings and offers the text edition of the Processus on the basis of two Vienna manuscripts and an early modern printed edition.