Many alchemists have tried their hand at the difficult art of transmutation, but a real breakthrough in this domain was made by Michał Sędziwój (known more commonly in English as Michael Sendivogius), an adept of the arcanum and secretary to King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland.

Michał Sędziwój (1566–??) received a good education that fell onto fertile ground – as a boy he had no need for a tutor who, with cane in hand, would have to encourage him to read. He devoured thick volumes, one after the other, spanning domains as distant from each other as astronomy and botany. But his greatest passion was alchemy. He personally met the great initiated minds of his age. We cannot, however, state that he did not have his feet on the ground – he proved to be an effective diplomat on several occasions, well-known even in the most prominent courts of 16th-century Europe.