Melchior Cibinensis

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Melchior Cibinensis , Melchior von Hermannstadt , also Nicolaus Melchior Cibinensis, was a 16th century alchemical author from Transylvania . He was probably a priest and is known as the author of an alchemical mass (Addam et processus sub forma missae), or the representation of the alchemical process in the form of a mass, which was probably created around 1525 and 1602 in the Theatrum Chemicum and 1617 in the Symbola Aureae Mensae was published by Michael Maier .

Melchior Cibinensis in Michael Maier, Symbola Aureae Mensae

Attempts to identify with other known people from the era

Melchior Cibinensis was identified by Carl Gustav Jung with the court astrologer and court chaplain of Vladislav II and Ludwig II , Nicolas Melchior Szebeni, who came to the Viennese court after the death of Ludwig II in the Battle of Mohács in 1526. The process is dedicated to the Hungarian King Vladislav II.

According to other sources, he is identical to a Nicolas Melchior from Sibiu, whom Charles II had beheaded in Prague in 1531 with the Bohemian nobleman Andreas Schampasa, because they had minted coins that were worth more than the king's. This Nicolas Melchior came from a family of goldsmiths in Sibiu and had studied in Vienna. He is said not to have been the actual author, but only to have transmitted the older text.

The author was also identified with Miklós Oláh (Nicolaus Olahus), who died in 1568.

Fonts

  • Farkas Gábor Kiss, Benedek Láng, Cosmin Popa-Gorjanu: The Alchemical Mass of Nicolaus Melchior Cibinensis: Text, Identity and Speculations. Ambix, Volume 53, 2006, pp. 143-159

The alchemical mass first appeared in: Nicolas Barnaud , Commentariolum in aenigmaticum quoddam epitaphium, Leiden 1597, 37–41. Digital copy (reprinted in Theatrum Chemicum )

Further editions of the process:

  • Arch. Dell'Unicorno 2, 1976, 15-20, 49-56
  • Nicolas Melchior de Szeben: Processus Chimique sous forme de la Messe dedié à Ladislas, Roi de Hongrie et de Bohème , Publisher: Archè, Milan 1977

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This is what the Cibinensis designation of origin stands for
  2. ↑ Officially because of Chimischer Kunst , which probably stood for counterfeiting
  3. ^ Rudolf Soukup: Chemistry in Austria. 2007, Volume 1, 325
  4. ↑ Soukup, p. 325 quotes a manuscript according to which it comes from a chaplain of the last Bosnian king Stjepan Tomašević , who was beheaded by the Turks in 1463. The king gave the manuscript to Ladislaus Postumus beforehand.
  5. ↑ Cristiana Neagu: Servant of the Renaissance: the Poetry and Prose of Nicolaus Olahus. 2003
personal data
SURNAME Melchior Cibinensis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Melchior of Sibiu; Nicolaus Melchior Cibinensis; Melchior Szebeni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Alchemist and clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century or 16th century
DATE OF DEATH 16th Century