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The Montesi Formula is an incantation from the Darkhold that is capable of destroying vampires.[1] Depending on how it is used, this spell's effects can be as limited as disintegrating a single vampire who is in close proximity to the caster. However, if the complete incantation were spoken by a powerful sorcerer who also had the Darkhold, then it could wipe out all vampires within a plane of existence by erasing the curse that allowed vampirism to exist on that plane.[2][3]

History

Eons ago, before being forced to flee to a nether dimension in order to escape from Demogorge, the evil Elder God Chthon inscribed all of its dark mystical knowledge on indestructible parchments that were to serve as its permanent link to the Earthly plane.[4][5] Those parchments later came to be known as the Darkhold and among the spells that they contained were both a spell that could create vampires and one that could destroy them.[2]

Sometime before the Great Cataclysm, on the continent of Atlantis, the Darkhold spell was first used to create vampires.[6] The first of them, Varnae,[7] somehow either knew or learned that the Darkhold could also be used to destroy his kind.[8]

In the late 12th century, the Darkhold scrolls came into the possession of the Catholic Church. The reigning Pope entrusted them to a young monk named Paolo Montesi who had only recently been appointed the curator of a little-known church library devoted to occult artifacts. Varnae learned that the Church had acquired the Darkhold but was also aware that they did not yet know that it could be used to destroy all vampires.[9] However, Varnae probably did not know that the scroll that held the vampire-destroying spell was not then part of the Darkhold.

At some point, the Church learned that one of the indestructible parchments contained an incantation that could destroy all vampires. Paolo Montesi's son and successor, Giacomo Montesi, confirmed that that scroll had not been among those that his father had bound together and realized that it must have been taken eastward during the Hyborian Age. Giacomo sent expeditions to Tibet to try to obtain the missing scroll but was assassinated by one of Varnae's human agents before a trade could be made with the Nine Wise Men of Kamar-Taj.[10]

By the 15th century, when that scroll was finally brought to the Vatican and bound into the Darkhold, that long-sought spell had already become known as the "Montesi Formula." However, since the language in which it was written had not yet been fully deciphered, the spell could not be spoken. Before it could be translated, Count Dracula learned of its existence and forced a thief named Murgo to steal the Darkhold from the Vatican Library. Murgo succeeded but was intercepted before he could deliver it to Dracula by the sorcerer Cagliostro who killed him and took the Darkhold for himself.[11]

In recent years, the Darkhold was obtained by Jack Russell who gave it to Father Ramón Jóquez to translate.[12] Father Jóquez became possessed by the spirit of the evil monk Aelfric and soon afterwards died during a battle between Aelfric's thrall Dragonus and the Werewolf by Night.[13] However, the death of so learned priest under such mysterious circumstances attracted the attention of Monsignore Giuseppe Montesi who was then the curator of that secret wing of the Vatican Library. After receiving the notes that Father Jóquez had made, Montesi found a copy of the incantation among them and was finally able to use the spell.[14]

After Montesi used the spell several times to destroy newly-created vampires, Dracula came to Vatican City to stop him. Dracula burnt Montesi's copy of the spell and fatally injured the monk but, before dying, Montesi informed the vampire lord that, days earlier, he had mailed another copy of the incantation to Dracula's enemy, Quincy Harker.[1]

Learning of this, Elianne Turac had Harker abducted in an attempt to get the Montesi Formula from him so she could use it against Dracula. However, despite being tortured, Harker insisted that he did not have it, and Turac was soon killed by Dracula.[15]

Rachel van Helsing somehow acquired a copy of the Montesi Formula and had it secured within a castle on Pendarrow Hill that vampires could not enter. Dracula's daughter and nemesis, Lilith, learned of this and, unable to get the book containing the spell herself, secretly possessed Kitty Pryde and then manipulated the X-Men into stealing it. However, when "Kitty" began reciting the spell, she was prevented from finishing it by Nightcrawler who had recognized the words as being from the Darkhold and believed that her soul would have been forfeit if she had completed the enchantment.[16]

Later, Dracula sought out the Darkhold after learning that it could be used to grant him great power. However, his search led to him being opposed by Doctor Strange, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, and his allies Hannibal King, Blade, Frank Drake and Wong. Using the power of the Darkhold, Doctor Strange was able to use the complete incantation to destroy Dracula and all vampires on Earth.[2]

A later attempt by two Darkholders who had served Dracula to import a vampire from another reality succeeded but that vampire immediately disintegrated, proving that the Montesi Formula had erased the curse that allowed vampirism to exist in Earth's reality.[3]

Properties

Even people with little or no mystic talent can kill vampires in close proximity by reciting the spell.[1][14]

A powerful sorcerer who has both the Darkhold and the complete spell could destroy all vampires within his or her plane of existence.[6]

  • Once cast, the spell is permanent and will remain in effect unless it is specifically broken by the recreation of the vampiric curse.[3] If that were to happen, then the vampires that were destroyed by the spell would be rejuvenated.

Notes

  • The version of the spell used by Giuseppe Montesi was "Holo erasma rabis katerama lucem dei paradoxis satannicus belgrem"[1]
  • The more complete incantation that was used to destroy all vampires was preceded by "Daemoneth chthon...dibilibus rhalhma...infernibus invohileth...calthnum terbolec."[2]
  • Reciting the complete enchantment can (allegedly) cause the speaker to forfeit their soul.[16] However, Giuseppe Montesi was apparently able to use it without losing his soul.
  • The back-story of the Montesi Formula has changed over time:
    • In Dracula Lives #6, the closest thing this spell had to a name was when Dracula referred to it as "the Darkhold incantation." According to Montesi, all of the Darkhold was written in Latin except for the words of the incantation which were in a language that had been unheard on Earth for centuries, and he was not even certain of the precise meaning of those words. Also, the fact that Dracula recalled that he had previously opposed both the woman called Topaz and a werewolf in order to keep the words of the spell from others indicated that he had known of the spell before Montesi began using it.
    • In Giant-Size Dracula #3, the spell was referred to as the "Montesi Formula" for the first time, and was known by that name to Elianne Turac, Quincy Harker and Dracula.
    • In Doctor Strange (Vol. 2) #61, Dracula revealed that inferior copies of the Darkhold had been made which had survived to the present day only in fragmentary form. Hannibal King later revealed that Doctor Strange had told him about a passage in the Darkhold that some called the Montesi Formula because an old monk named Montesi had found a crumbling copy of the Darkhold in the Vatican Library which had contained part of a spell that totally destroyed vampires in close proximity.
    • In the entry on the Darkhold that appeared in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #15, the fact that it contained a spell to destroy all vampires was mentioned but without any references to the name Montesi.
    • In Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #9, the Book of the Vishanti back-up story revealed that that monk had actually been a prelate named Monsignore Giuseppe Montesi and that he was part of a family that had been trying to acquire "the ancient Montesi Formula" for generations.
    • In Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #15, the Book of the Vishanti back-up story revealed that the Montesi family had arranged for the Vatican Library to acquire the page containing the incantation that could destroy vampires sometime in the 15th century. Presumably due to the family's long search for it, the spell had already become known as the "Montesi Formula" by the time that Dracula learned of it and the Darkhold soon after becoming a vampire in 1459 A.D.

See Also

Links and References

References

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