''Polygraphia'' is a
cryptographic
Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...
work written by
Johannes Trithemius
Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a Lexicography, lexicographer, chronicler, Cryptography, cryptograph ...
published in 1518 dedicated to the art of
steganography
Steganography ( ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the concealed information would not be evident to an unsuspecting person's examination. In computing/ ...
.
The full title is
ix books of polygraphy, by Johannes Trithemius, abbot at Maximilian ">Würzburg, formerly at Spanheim, for the Emperor
Maximilian
It is the oldest known source of the popular
Witches' Alphabet, used at large by Wicca">modern traditions of witchcraft">Theban alphabet">Witches' Alphabet, used at large by Wicca">modern traditions of witchcraft.
[Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1531). ''Three Books of Occult Philosophy''.]
Review
It is composed of six books and a Key (cryptography), decrypytion key
* Book I contains no fewer than 384 alphabets (called "minutiae" by the author) of 24 letters (or "degrees"): each letter corresponds to a Latin word (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) in reference to Christian prayers and religious texts, being in total 9,216 different words. This is nowadays known as the cipher, which mostly uses only a few of the first alphabets.
* Book II contains 308 more Latin alphabets with 7,392 words, again using Latin words with mostly religious context.
* Book III presents 132 alphabets in three columns which are 3,168 dictions of a "universal language" where each letter is equivalent to an invented word (for example "a" could be Abra, mada, badar, cadalan, pasa etc.) but capable of expressing numbers (from 1 to 10 would be Abra, Abre, Abri, Abro, Abru, Abras, Abres, Abris, Abros and Abrus).
* Book IV shows 2,880 invented alphabet dictions in 120 alphabets. To decode, one must simply extract the second letter of each word.
* Book V reproduces two canonical
hash table
In computer science, a hash table is a data structure that implements an associative array, also called a dictionary or simply map; an associative array is an abstract data type that maps Unique key, keys to Value (computer science), values. ...
s, one direct with 80 alphabets and the other inverted with 98 alphabets, allowing infinite permutations, to which twelve "planispheric wheels" each comprising six categories of 24 numbers combined with the 24 letters and thus allowing elaborate a big amount of ciphered messages.
* Book VI is a collection of (partly alleged) ancient alphabets, including Germanic-Franconian, Ethiopian, Norman, Magical and Alchemical.
The work ends with alphabets of his invention as the "tetragramaticus" formed by 4 characters that are diversified in 24 letters and the "enagramaticus" of 9 characters and 28 letters, from which he gives examples of writings that belongs to something it resembles a natural language.
Relationship with ''Steganographia''
According to some scholars, both books, ''
Steganographia
''Steganographia'' is a book on steganography, written in c. 1499 by the German Benedictine abbot and polymath Johannes Trithemius.
General
Trithemius' most famous work, ''Steganographia'' (written c.1499; published Frankfurt, 1606), was placed o ...
'' and ''Polygraphia'', are but a single work presented in two parts: the first is metaphysical and quite theoretical (it even hides a complete treatise on "angelology", or the study of angels with their names and hierarchies, between its pages), the second is more practical and is used for encoding messages.
See also
*
History of cryptography
Cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers, began thousands of years ago. Until recent decades, it has been the story of what might be called classical cryptography — that is, of methods of encryption that use pen and paper, or perhaps simple m ...
*
Johannes Trithemius
Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a Lexicography, lexicographer, chronicler, Cryptography, cryptograph ...
* ''
Polygraphia Nova
''Polygraphia nova et universalis ex combinatoria arte directa'' is a 1663 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was one of Kircher's most highly regarded works and his only complete work on the subject of cryptography, although he m ...
''
References
Bibliography
Polygraphiae libri sex Ioannis Trithemij
at the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
''Steganographia'' (Latin). Digital Edition, 1997
''Steganographia'' (Latin). Google Books, 1608 edition
''Steganographia'' (Latin). Google Books, 1621 edition
Solved: The Ciphers in Book iii of Trithemius's ''Steganographia''
PDF, 208 kB
(includes links to photographs of various Trithemius first edition
The bibliographical definition of an edition is all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants.
First edition
According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a book pr ...
s.)
The complete and solved Steganography books''Steganographia qvæ hvcvsqve a nemine intellecta''
at the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
External links
*
*
Trithemius Redivivus
Translations and resources pertaining to the ''Steganographia'' of Johannes Trithemius
{{Authority control
1518 books
16th-century books in Latin
Cryptography books