Melchior Cibinensis
Hungarian writer

Melchior Cibinensis was a Hungarian alchemical writer active in the first part of the 16th century. He is known for the Processus sub forma missae, an alchemical mass, now dated to around 1525, through which wanted to make from alchemy a religion; it was published in the Theatrum Chemicum of 1602, and formed part of a celebrated later collection Symbola Aureae Mensae from 1617 of Michael Maier.
The identity of Melchior is still a subject of debate. The candidate proposed by Carl Jung was Nicolas Melchior Szebeni. This Nicolas was chaplain and from 1490 court astrologer to Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary to whom the Processus was dedicated. It has more recently been proposed that Melchior was a pseudonym of Nicolaus Olahus. Another name given is Menyhért Miklós.
References
Kiss, Farkas Gábor; Láng, Benedek; Popa-Gorjanu, Cosmin, The Alchemical Mass of Nicolaus Melchior Cibinensis: Text, Identity and Speculations, Ambix, Volume 53, Number 2, July 2006, pp.
The public source identifies “Melchior Cibinensis” as hungarian writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Melchior, Cibinensis and Hungarian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q580267. VIAF identifies the subject as 84413653. The Library of Congress control number is no2015125608. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1525, 1602, 1617 and 1490.
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This entry incorporates text from “Melchior Cibinensis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.