Melchior Cibinensis at the Alchemical Mass

The black-and-white engraving depicts a priest from behind, kneeling on a stone platform and raising his hands in a gesture of adoration toward a glowing, visionary apparition of a woman breastfeeding an infant. The priest wears a liturgical chasuble displaying a central image of the Crucifixion on its back. To his right, an altar holds a lit candle and an open book. The Virgin and Child are encircled by a circular frame and radiating light beams, suggesting a divine, supernatural presence contrasted against the somber, architectural setting of the interior.

This image serves as the frontispiece to the 'Processus sub forma missae' attributed to Melchior Cibinensis, a text that uses the liturgy of the Catholic Mass as a coded allegorical framework for the alchemical transmutation of base metals into gold. It represents a key syncretic moment in early modern alchemy where traditional religious ritual and chemical laboratory processes were conflated into a singular, sacred endeavor.