KEMPF, NIKOLAUS. - German ascetical and mystical writer of the Carthusian Order, also called Nicola di Strasburgo, where he was born in 1397; he died at Gaming on 20 Nov. 1497. He took his doctorate in philosophy at Vienna and in 1440 withdrew to the Charterhouse of Gaming, where he held the office of prior (1451–58); he then governed the house of Geirach (Carniola) for 30 years.
His writings are numerous and formed part of the mystical literature favoured by the so-called “Friends of God.” Bernardo Pez had gathered them there for publication in his Bibliotheca ascetica, but death forestalled him. The principal works are: Tractatus tripartitus de studio theologiae moralis (in B. Pez’s Bibl. ascetica, IV, Ratisbona 1723, pp. 257–492); Tractatus de discretione (ibid., IX, pp. 318–532); In cantica canticorum expositiones mysticae (ibid., XI and XII). The others remained unpublished; for the most part they are preserved in the National Libraries of Vienna and Strasbourg and in the Library of the University of Basel.