Occult Alphabets / 04Ciphers and codes
Alongside sacred alphabets and mysterious scripts, history knows another family of signs: those created to conceal. This section tells the story of the ciphers and codes that accompanied politics, war, religion and learned curiosity, from the Spartan scytale to the Enigma machine. Here you will meet the Atbash of the Hebrew Bible, the letter shift attributed to Caesar, the Polybius square and the method by which the philosopher al-Kindi taught how to count letters, followed by the great figures of the Renaissance: Leon Battista Alberti, Trithemius, Bellaso, Della Porta, Bacon. There are also the chanceries that lived on secrets, such as the Republic of Venice and the France of the Rossignols, and the cases in which a deciphered letter decided the fate of a queen. Next to documented facts there is room for legends too, such as the Templar cipher or the Beale treasure, presented for what they are. Each article tells of people, works and dates, to show how the art of secrecy changed over the centuries.
Ψ-01 · 3 minThe Spartan scytale: the staff that concealed messages
The Spartan scytale, the message staff described by Plutarch: how its transposition worked, the story of Lysander and why historians still debate it.
Ψ-02 · 3 minAtbash: the reversed Hebrew alphabet and the hidden names in Jeremiah
Atbash, the ancient Hebrew cipher that reverses the alphabet: the hidden names of Babylon in Jeremiah, kabbalistic temurah and the Baphomet theory.
Ψ-03 · 3 minThe Caesar cipher: the three-letter shift described by Suetonius
Caesar's cipher according to Suetonius and Aulus Gellius: the three-letter shift, Augustus's variant, the letter in Greek and the limits of the method.
Ψ-04 · 3 minThe Polybius square: letters as numbers and fire signals
The Polybius square from the fire signals of the 2nd century BC to prisoners' tap code and the German ADFGVX cipher of 1918: the story of a letter grid.
Ψ-05 · 3 minLeon Battista Alberti and the cipher disk: polyalphabetic encryption
Leon Battista Alberti and his De componendis cifris: the cipher disk, frequency analysis and the birth of polyalphabetic encryption in the 15th century.
Ψ-06 · 3 minTrithemius and the Polygraphia: the first printed book on cryptography
Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, and the Polygraphia printed in 1518: the Ave Maria cipher, the tabula recta and the birth of cryptography as a discipline.
Ψ-07 · 3 minThe Steganographia of Trithemius: angels, spirits and hidden messages
Trithemius's Steganographia, long seen as a book of demonic magic and placed on the Index: how its spirits concealed ciphers and who finally decoded them.
Ψ-08 · 3 minBellaso and Vigenère: the story of a mistaken attribution
The so-called Vigenère cipher was published in 1553 by Giovan Battista Bellaso of Brescia: the literal key, the autokey and Kasiski's decipherment.
Ψ-09 · 3 minGiambattista Della Porta and the De furtivis literarum notis
Giambattista Della Porta and his 1563 treatise on secret writing: the digraphic cipher, the probable-word method and the curious world of hidden inks.
Ψ-10 · 3 minMary, Queen of Scots, her cipher and the Babington Plot
How the ciphered letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, broken by Thomas Phelippes for Walsingham, led to her execution in 1587, and the letters found in 2023.
Ψ-11 · 3 minRossignol's Great Cipher, the secret of Louis XIV
Antoine Rossignol, codebreaker to Richelieu and Louis XIV, and the syllabic Great Cipher that stayed unread until Bazeries and the Iron Mask affair.
Ψ-12 · 3 minThe Templar cipher: the history of a modern legend
The so-called Templar cipher, an alphabet drawn from the eight-pointed cross: what the documents say, its modern origins and why the legend endures.
Ψ-13 · 3 minThe Masonic cipher: grids, dots and letter enclosures
The Masonic or pigpen cipher: how its grids are built, its roots in Agrippa's Kabbalah of nine chambers and its use in eighteenth-century lodges.
Ψ-14 · 3 minMorse code: dots, dashes and the telegraph's first message
Morse code from the first message of 1844 to International Morse and SOS: the story of Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and a code that was never a cipher.
Ψ-15 · 3 minEnigma and Bletchley Park: the rotor machine and those who beat it
The Enigma machine, the Polish mathematicians who first broke it and the work of Turing and Welchman at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.
Ψ-16 · 3 minThe Beale ciphers: a Virginia treasure between history and suspicion
The Beale ciphers and the alleged Virginia treasure: the 1885 pamphlet, the text solved with the Declaration of Independence and the reasons for doubt.
Ψ-17 · 3 minThe cipher secretaries: cryptography in the Republic of Venice
Cryptography in the Republic of Venice: the cipher secretaries, Giovanni Soro, the oversight of the Council of Ten and the ciphers in the State Archives.
Ψ-18 · 3 minFrancis Bacon and the biliteral cipher: two signs for the alphabet
Francis Bacon's biliteral cipher, published in 1623: a two-symbol code that anticipates binary, and the long controversy over Shakespeare ciphers.
Ψ-19 · 3 minTattooed messages and wax tablets: steganography in Herodotus
Ancient steganography in Herodotus: the shaved head of Histiaeus's slave, Demaratus's wax tablet, Harpagus's hare and the methods of Aeneas Tacticus.
Ψ-20 · 3 minAl-Kindi and frequency analysis: how a substitution is broken
Al-Kindi, the ninth-century philosopher of Baghdad, and the first known treatise on frequency analysis: how a simple substitution cipher is broken.