Clavis Polygraphiae

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Preface and Exposition to the Clavis Polygraphiae

Trithemius explains why his Polygraphia was deliberately written in enigmas, defends its usefulness for secure correspondence among good men, and opens the commentary by situating his art among older methods of secret writing.

Preface to the Explanation of the Whole Work of the Polygraphia of Johannes Trithemius, Abbot [unclear], that is, [unclear], at Saint James^1

No one who reads these things, as I trust, will judge me either arrogant or superfluous because I myself have recently composed a commentary on the Polygraphia^2 that I discovered, especially if he can examine carefully, to the smallest detail, what cause moved us to speak obscurely. For whatever could do harm if it were made public had to be concealed in mystical modes of discourse.^3 The matter that we treat in the Polygraphia is, among good men, useful and honorable for the benefit of the commonwealth;^4 and for that reason, with rational cause, we wrapped it in [unclear] form, so that by its service we might make good men safe and secure from the prying inquiry of the wicked when they communicate their secrets to one another.

Yet to the depraved and perverse, who often abuse even good inventions, an opportunity might otherwise be given for deceiving the simpler and less cautious in asserting a matter. Therefore we handed down mystical, or hidden, modes of writing in it, and covered the truth lying hidden in the marrow with wrappings and with [conjectured: veils] of figures.^5 Still, we do not at all doubt that active men, industrious, eager in their desire for these matters, will easily grasp everything, if they apply even modest but continuous effort to the [conjectured: forked or difficult path]. For what I have taught is not so arduous, nor so enveloped in such great mysteries, that it cannot be penetrated at all by a keen student. Everywhere I have so moderated the enigmas of our diction that they are readily accessible to learned and studious inquirers, while nevertheless remaining in darkness for the sluggish and benighted.

But after it pleased me to dedicate and offer the work of the Polygraphia itself to the most serene and unconquered Maximilian, Caesar of the Romans and ever-august emperor of the world,^6 I judged it worth the effort to make it clear and open through brief and few interpretations, lest the mind of the aforesaid majesty, which is daily distracted by many affairs and cares, be drawn back from understanding it by the opacity of its mysteries. For, unless my opinion deceives me, the work will be dearer and more useful to his majesty the briefer and clearer it is.

First, therefore, with the Lord granting it, we shall briefly explain the proposed meaning, which is contained in the prologue and wrapped under various enigmas. Then, book by book through the Polygraphia, we shall unfold, succinctly and according to the capacity of our understanding, the modes, rules, cautions, and distinctions of the work, in due order, where they remain necessary. And so that all these matters may become more quickly accessible to those who desire to know them, we shall demonstrate them all in sequence by examples, as briefly as the subject permits and reason allows.

Key of the Explanation of the Polygraphia of Johannes Trithemius, Abbot [unclear]

Exposition on the Prologue

The whole intention in the entire work of the Polygraphia turns upon this purpose: that we should hand down certain methods of writing secretly, by which kings and princes, nobles and commoners, priests and laymen, the learned together with the unlearned, may secretly, safely, and without any suspicion of a hidden secret, communicate to one another, and to any friends they choose, even when far distant from one another, through the ministry of letters whatever and as often as need requires from the purposes of their minds.^7

And lest we seem to have presumed to be either the first or the only ones to do this, we have warned the reader that many of the ancients, especially tyrants, princes, and kings, moved by a similar consideration, devised for themselves familiar and various alphabets and rules of writing,^8 by which they themselves attempted in particular what we have promised universally in our Polygraphia. From their number we introduced first, for the sake of the proposed example, Caesar Augustus, whose method of secret writing [the text breaks off].^9

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^1. Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), Benedictine abbot and humanist, was associated both with Sponheim and, later, the monastery of Saint James at Wuerzburg. The OCR corrupts the institutional title, so the precise abbacy formula is left unresolved. ^2. The Polygraphia, first printed in 1518, is Trithemius's major work on secret writing. The present Clavis Polygraphiae is framed as a key or explanatory commentary to its intentionally obscure systems. ^3. "Mystical" here does not simply mean devotional; in Trithemius it overlaps with deliberately veiled technical discourse, especially where cryptographic, angelic, and learned arts are presented under enigmatic language. ^4. Respublica is rendered "commonwealth" in its early-modern moral-political sense: the public good or ordered community, not a modern republican state. ^5. "Figures" refers to the graphic and alphabetic signs through which the Polygraphia conceals plaintext. The damaged wording suggests coverings, veils, or wrappings rather than a distinct technical term recoverable with certainty. ^6. Maximilian I (1459-1519), Holy Roman Emperor from 1508, was a major dedicatee for learned and technical works. Trithemius presents the commentary as a clarification suited to the emperor's limited time and political responsibilities. ^7. "Ministry of letters" translates ministerium literarium: the practical medium of written correspondence, not clerical ministry. The passage defines Polygraphia as a generalized system for secure long-distance communication. ^8. Canones scribendi are "rules" or "systems" of writing; in this context they denote cipher alphabets, substitution conventions, and procedures for concealing messages. ^9. Caesar Augustus was conventionally credited with simple letter-shift ciphers in ancient and humanist discussions of cryptography; the sentence appears to introduce such an example, but the supplied page breaks before the explanation continues.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Alphabetic Transposition, Scytales, Tironian Notes, and Frankish Ciphers

The passage explains several historical methods of secret writing, moving from simple alphabetic substitution to the Spartan scytale, Ciceronian shorthand signs, and alphabetic ciphers attributed to early Frankish kings and Charlemagne.

[unclear] The breathings of a conceived voice, borrowing opaque things from luminous ones, which, while the notes of barbarism remain, produce fair things suitable to be turned back [conjectured: by metathesis] at the nod of the one who understands.

Mystery

This also Caesar Augustus^1 did: when he wished to write what he intended more secretly, he changed the letters of the alphabet by a varied transposition, so that he put b for a, c for b, and so on in sequence through the languages. And, in order that the writing might remain more tortuous and secret, at his own discretion he transposed the letters in breadth and length, at whatever interval of order, number, and place he chose.

Explanation

Although no one can easily comprehend the hidden meaning contained beneath a literary transposition,^2 this writing nevertheless makes those into whose hands it comes suspicious that some concealed matter has been introduced.

Mystery

Archimedes, the Syracusan,^3 easily the foremost of mathematicians, by his own suitable arrangements [used] a white bird, bare at head and feet, and the rest.

Explanation

Archimedes had two rods made, of one length and thickness, either round or square.^4 He kept one of them with himself and entrusted the other to his absent friend. Whenever one wished to write something secretly to the other, he wrapped the “white bird,” that is, a strip of papyrus, narrow in width but twice the length of the rod, around the wood, tying it above and below with wax. Then, when the strip had been joined together by the sides into an artificial compact mass, he wrote on the strip whatever he wished. Next he loosened the strip from the rod; immediately such a distance appeared between the letters that not even one word cohered with another. He turned the strip over and, if he wished, wrote on the other side. Anyone ignorant of this procedure could make nothing of it, even if he set himself to investigate it. But the man who possessed the other rod attached to it the strip he had received, and restored the letters to their prior order.

Mystery

Marcus Tullius Cicero,^5 the eloquent Roman orator, by the use of his intelligence and skill, changed short Greek signs, and the rest.

Explanation

The books of notes written for his son,^6 which the blessed martyr Cyprian^7 later greatly enlarged for Christians, are arranged in the manner of a dictionary: first the characters without notes are placed in order; afterward, for the school, characters are drawn beside the words, so that the word is signified by notation as if by abbreviation. A whole Latin psalter,^8 written throughout in these notes or stenographic characters, and beautifully written, we once saw in the larger library of the church at Strasbourg.^9 Some ignorant judge, unfamiliar with such things, had deprived it of its proper title. [unclear] “Psalter in the Sarmatian language.” But anyone for whom it was thus described was mistaken. It should have been written: “Latin Psalter written throughout in Tullian characters.” For each character represented an entire Latin word, whether simple or repeated. Nor does my judgment deceive me, since I possess, in an old volume, the whole and uncorrupt dictionary of Cicero’s notes, corrected by Saint Cyprian; I have seen it nowhere else. The supply of notes or characters, with the words placed beneath them, is so great that it is wholly sufficient for writing Latin speech, as you will see below.

Mystery

Pharamund,^10 the forty-third from Marcomer, king of the Franks, when in the year 424 from the Lord’s nativity he attempted to bring the borders of Gaul under his control, and the rest.

Explanation

The kings of the Franks, from that very time when they are recorded in our notes, in the year 430 before Christ’s nativity, to have gone forth with their people to the banks of the Rhine, where Guelria is now situated,^11 waged a grievous war with the Gauls for almost [unclear] years, and violently subjected them to themselves as tributaries, as we have written in the first volume of our annals. From these men the aforesaid King Pharamund, in order to settle more securely among enemies and to rule, devised new and proper alphabets for secret purposes, which no one could recognize without his permission or voluntary disclosure. He used not one, nor a few, but many alphabets.

Mystery

Clodius Crinitus, son of Pharamund and afterward king of the Franks, who subjected the whole of Gaul to himself, used Roman characters, which he found in that [unclear] of the fathers, for the invention of secret writing.

Explanation

That king devised his own new alphabet and handed individual alphabets to each of his commanders, while he alone retained a copy among his notaries.

Mystery

Charles called the Great,^12 the sixty-third king of the Franks, who was the first of the Franks to bear the diadem of the Roman Empire, and the rest.

Explanation

This man, the elder son of King Pippin, is said to have been born as duke of Brabant, in the county of Namur, bordering on the people of Liège [text breaks off].

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^1. The procedure described is the alphabetic substitution associated in antiquity with Caesar and Augustus. Suetonius attributes to Augustus a one-letter shift, writing b for a, c for b, and so forth; Trithemius folds this into his broader taxonomy of transposition ciphers. ^2. “Literary transposition” here means a cipher produced by displacing alphabetic signs, whether by substitution, reordering in lines, or spatial rearrangement across “breadth and length.” ^3. Archimedes of Syracuse (third century BCE) is introduced here less as the historical inventor of the device than as an exemplary ancient mathematician to whom a mechanical ciphering apparatus can be attributed. ^4. The two equal rods describe the scytale principle: a strip wound round a staff is legible only when rewound on a staff of the same dimensions. Classical sources associate the device especially with Spartan military correspondence rather than with Archimedes. ^5. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) is linked in medieval and early-modern shorthand traditions with systems of notae, although the best-known ancient shorthand system is usually attributed to his freedman Tiro. ^6. “Notes” translates notae: shorthand or stenographic signs, not explanatory annotations. The reference to books “for his son” reflects Trithemius’s transmitted account rather than a secure classical bibliographic fact. ^7. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and martyr (d. 258), is credited here with adapting or enlarging shorthand signs for Christian use; this is part of the reception history of Tironian/Ciceronian notes. ^8. A psalter is the Book of Psalms arranged for liturgical or devotional use. Trithemius’s point is that a text can appear to be in an unknown language when it is actually Latin encoded in shorthand signs. ^9. “Argentina” is the Latin name for Strasbourg. Trithemius identifies the manuscript as once held in the larger library of its church. ^10. Pharamund or Faramund is a legendary early king of the Franks in medieval historiography, often placed before the historically firmer Merovingian line; Trithemius uses him as a witness for Frankish cipher alphabets. ^11. “Guelria” denotes Guelders/Gelderland on the lower Rhine. The chronological claim “430 before Christ’s nativity” is part of Trithemius’s Frankish legendary chronology, not modern historical dating. ^12. Charles the Great is Charlemagne (r. 768-814; crowned emperor in Rome on 25 December 800). Trithemius counts him within a Frankish royal sequence and presents him as another ruler associated with secret alphabets.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Bede, Norman Cipher Alphabets, and Invisible Writing

The passage comments on older secret-writing practices attributed to the Normans and Bede, then surveys visible alphabets, gestural signs, invisible inks, and steganographic methods useful for rulers.

[unclear] A certain man in the village of Ingelheim^1, not far from Mainz, is said [conjectured: to have been born there]; he also devised various modes of writing. With Nanno the grammarian^2 serving as assistant [unclear], he invented different alphabets, by which he committed the secrets of the kingdom in a singular manner [unclear].

Mystery

The Normans^3, once gone out from the Gothic regions and devastating Gaul with cruel ravaging, summoned from Greece [unclear] and prepared safe hiding places for their secrets, and so forth.

Explanation

When the Normans were fighting in Gaul, as Bede, a monk in England, testifies,^4 they substituted Greek numerical signs for many Latin letters, so that they might safely write their secrets among themselves: from a as the first sign down to the twenty-fourth, w or gu, according to their custom.^5 This is a very elegant mode of writing: the letters are Greek, and according to the Pelasgian, that is Greek, order of numbering they designate Latin letters: a = 1, b = 2, c = 3, d = 4, e = 5, f = 6, g = 7, and so on successively down to w, which is 24. Neither a Greek nor a Latin will understand this writing unless he has first learned the method by study and art.

Mystery

Bede, our monk in England, [unclear] of the Normans, described many old inventions similar to these, by which in turn they made the opaque clear for mysteries. He himself [used or commended] artrologia, and the rest.

Explanation

This monk Bede, in his little book on the inventions of the ancients,^6 recorded many and various modes of secret writing and notation. By these people safely announced their secrets to friends and spoke without voice to those present. He was the first of all to commend artrologia and dactylogia to his own people: by the use of one, a person can reveal to another, with the greatest security, whatever secret he wishes; no bystander will notice it, much less understand it.^7 Bede himself taught that this same thing can be done in many other ways. Since we have written nothing about these in the Polygraphia, we rightly decline to discuss still more of them here. We long ago assigned a proper place for these difficult matters in the Steganographia, which we are not yet considering publishing.^8

And who could set out all the modes of secret writing used by the ancients? Some had familiar [conjectured: daemons] appointed to the service of the art, called Philophoti; others had Mysophoti; others brought both into practice by art.^9 Again, some transposed the known letters of the common alphabet; others fashioned their own characters under a barbarian scheme. Others again used the service of visible letters, writing with minium or common ink; others formed invisible characters at their own discretion for messages.^10 The modes of invisible characters for secret writing are very many, indeed countless; it is neither our wish nor our purpose to mention them all.

Of invisible writing there are three kinds more commonly used among mortals today. The first is called dermatic: in it a certain artificial writing is made on the messenger's back with the fluid of a certain [conjectured: invisible] substance, which no one can penetrate unless he knows the secret of the art. The second is called hyphasmatic: in it something is written on cloth with certain substances; when dried, it cannot be seen at all until it appears after being moistened in cold water. The third kind is called alloctic: it is manifold and varied, both in form and in material, and has almost innumerable modes of secret writing.^11 Its writing is made on paper or without paper, with [unclear] and [unclear], with [unclear], [unclear], and other diverse things. Letters likewise are written in various ways and hidden in places: under [unclear], under [unclear], in [unclear], in [unclear], in [unclear], in [unclear], in [unclear], and in almost infinitely many other hiding places.

But since none of these matters serves our present [unclear] purpose, let us make an end where the argument requires. There is also another kind of dactylic communication, not by writing but by signs, through which one person can intimate the thoughts of his mind to another by highly subtle methods. This too varies through so many differences that no one in the world could enumerate all the species of so great a mystery. By the principal method, together with many others derived from it, while sitting at table or in any other place, you will be able to communicate whatever you wish to one who knows the art, securely, very safely, and without anyone's suspicion. Finally, without letters you will announce the secrets of your mind to someone absent, even when the person who performs the office of messenger does not know it, through the discoveries of steganography [unclear].

Indeed, many affairs arise around kings and princes; since they cannot always safely entrust visible letters to their representatives when those representatives are far away, it would be useful for each person to have some special modes of writing and sending messages, by which they may most safely disclose their secrets to friends in these present times, in which license to sin prevails and no [unclear].

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^1. Ingelheim lies on the Rhine near Mainz; the OCR gives Ingelenheimi and Moguntia, the standard Latin name for Mainz. ^2. The form Nannone grammatico is damaged but appears to name a grammarian assisting in the invention or arrangement of alphabets; the passage gives no secure identification beyond this role. ^3. The Normans are presented here not as a historical narrative focus but as exemplars in a genealogy of secret scripts, linked by the text to ravaging in Gaul and to a ciphering practice. ^4. Bede, the Northumbrian monk and computistical writer, is invoked as an authority for signs, alphabets, and non-verbal communication; Trithemius treats him as a precedent for cryptographic practice. ^5. The passage describes a substitution system in which Latin letters are represented by Greek-style numerical signs; the twenty-four-sign count reflects a non-classical alphabetic reckoning adapted to late-medieval Latin usage, including w/gu. ^6. Libellus de inventis antiquorum is probably a descriptive title or attribution in Trithemius's source tradition rather than a securely identifiable modern Bede title. ^7. Artrologia and dactylogia are technical terms for communication by bodily articulation and by fingers or hand signs; Trithemius treats them as silent channels for secret communication before bystanders. ^8. Trithemius distinguishes the public-facing Polygraphia from the more secretive Steganographia, where he says he has reserved the more difficult hidden-communication material. ^9. Philophoti and Mysophoti are Greek-looking spirit names, roughly “light-loving” and “light-hating”; the preceding noun is OCR-damaged, but the context of “familiars” in the service of the art supports the conjecture “daemons.” ^10. Minium is red lead or vermilion pigment; encaustum is ink. Trithemius contrasts ordinary visible writing materials with deliberately invisible characters. ^11. Dermatic, hyphasmatic, and alloctic are Trithemian technical classifications for invisible writing: on skin, on cloth, and in varied transferable or material forms respectively.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Unsafe Roads and an Explanation of the First Book of the Polygraphia

Trithemius denounces violent robbers in Maximilian’s empire and then explains the cipher procedure of the first book of the Polygraphia, in which apparently pious Latin sentences conceal a shorter secret message by alphabetic substitution.

No secure trust is found anywhere in the world. Even now men are seized a little way from the prince; they are stripped by their own robbers, beaten, and very often killed. Nor do these wicked plunderers spare even letters sealed and closed with royal rings. Hence it would be necessary for your commonwealth, most glorious Caesar Maximilian,^1 that you put on the skin of Hercules,^2 brandish the club in your hands, and purge the world entrusted to you by God of these savage monsters. There will be no peace in the kingdom unless the cudgels are removed from its midst [conjectured]. Whoever disturbs the peace of the kingdom shows himself to be the king’s enemy. These are the robbers who beset the roads of travellers and seize others’ property; the earth today is full of them, and no road is safe for those who walk.

Brief Explanation of the Things in the First Book of the Polygraphia That Seem Rather Obscure

Although the first book of the Polygraphia^3 contains nothing obscure, nevertheless, lest its composition perhaps seem deep to the simpler reader, we shall briefly explain the points thought more difficult. We have arranged more than nine thousand words of the Latin language in sequence under nearly four hundred alphabets,^4 in such a way that, if from each alphabet only one word after another is taken, whether from the beginning or toward the end, the words produce a mutually coherent and grammatically suitable Latin discourse. This will be a very convenient method for writing, in the greatest secrecy, whatever we wish, since each individual word represents the letter placed before it at the head.^5

The reader should not be disturbed because a multitude of words in the open text contains only a short meaning in the hidden text. For in this arrangement of ours there lies hidden a far broader and much more secret method of writing whatever you wish, a deeper one which public prudence has forbidden us to make openly available. But whoever is endowed with intelligence, and has applied the necessary investigations [unclear], will find subtler things hidden in these teachings and will fully understand matters wonderfully unknown before. Nonetheless, this method of writing will suffice for everything, since you can find as many words as you wish and vary a repeated narration again and again.

For if, as we have said, you take one word from the first alphabet, one also from the second, and so one from each following alphabet, and likewise one line from the inserted material outside the ordered sequence, until the period or the end of the book, the Latin will converse with you sufficiently and suitably. One must take care, however, that at one and the same time no more than one word is taken from a single alphabet, and that the scribe, through negligence or excessive haste, does not skip something in an alphabet and confuse the order of the narration.

By “day” understand the open narration; by “night,” however, the latent and hidden one, which is not at all prolix but brief.^6 The things that follow in the text, the model concerning the invisible soul and the body that sees [conjectured], pertain to the hidden and the manifest meaning. Whenever “the leaves are moved by the wind,” and the rest, you should count it as belonging to the open narration, so that both narrations may end together at the close of each period. But if something of the secret matter remains over, it is to be expanded with such moderation that both narrations end at one point, lest confusion be generated among ecclesiastics [unclear]. The remaining things that follow in the first book of the Polygraphia are implicitly carried along by the explanatory instruction and by everything we have said.

It should be noted, however, that no word placed under the order of the alphabets is empty; rather, each word represents for you its own letter set at the head. So that knowledge of this matter may not be lacking to the attentive reader, the following example will make it clear. Suppose that someone worthless seeks, through a friend of yours, to be promoted to some good office; but you, wishing to cut off his importunate requests and yet not to promote an unworthy man, decide to write more secretly to the friend through that same powerful man, so that he may not understand: “Beware of that man, because he is a thief and a very wicked scoundrel.”

Go to the first alphabet and write the word “Conditor,” which signifies C. In the second, write “clemens,” which gives A. In the third, “diercnes” [unclear], which represents V. In the fourth, “mundana,” which signifies E. Now you have in the hidden narration: “cave,” “beware.” Proceed in the same way through the white [conjectured: other] alphabets, and your discourse emerges sufficiently: “Conditor clemens diercnes mundana, infimue expertentibus amentiae teraphica cui omnibus sanctis suis in caelis, amen.” [unclear]^7 “Your writing, most glorious prince, is to be reverently remembered by the holy [unclear]; having received the best things, it exhorts us, the most abject sleepers, by its excellence, on account of reverence for the director of good men; abandon [unclear], and with every affection provide for the perpetual glory of rest.” [unclear]

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^1. Caesar Maximilian is Maximilian I of Habsburg, king of the Romans from 1486 and emperor-elect from 1508; Trithemius addresses him here as the ruler responsible for restoring public order on the roads. ^2. Hercules is invoked through his lion-skin and club, the classical attributes of the hero who destroys monsters; Trithemius applies the image to princely punishment of robbers. ^3. The Polygraphia is Trithemius’s printed cryptographic work, organized as a sequence of alphabets in which ordinary-looking Latin devotional prose can encode a shorter message. ^4. “Nearly four hundred alphabets” refers to the cipher tables of the first book: each alphabet supplies substitute words, so that selecting one word from each table yields a concealed letter sequence. ^5. The “letter placed at the head” is the visible alphabetic header of a table; the chosen word beneath it functions as a cover-word representing that header-letter in the hidden message. ^6. “Day” and “night” are Trithemius’s technical terms for the two textual levels: the daylight text is the overt Latin cover discourse, while the night text is the compressed secret message. ^7. The example illustrates the acrostic-like substitution system: the first four selected cover-words yield C-A-V-E, Latin “beware,” even though the surface sentence reads as religious prose. Several example words are badly damaged in the OCR and have been left untranslated where unrecoverable.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Rules and Cautions for Using the Polygraphic Book

The passage explains how a public Latin cover-text may conceal a private message, then gives the first six practical cautions for encoding secret writing with Trithemius’s polygraphic alphabets.

[unclear] to wait. Therefore, O vain [unclear], receive instruction, so that you may be able, adorned most happily, to enter the most blessed dances of the archangels of the rewarder [unclear]. Flee, then, from the foulest honors of this pilgrimage, since you are about to enter most blessedly into the [unclear] of the kindly savior of the ages [unclear].

In this prefixed public narration there is contained, hidden in secret, the following sentence, namely: [conjectured: “Beware of that novice, because he is a thief and a thoroughly worthless rogue; but keep silent, I beg you.”]^1 Proceed in the same order when dealing with all the rest, always beginning again from the head, until you have enclosed the hidden narration of your mystery clearly. Words that are placed outside alphabetical order designate no letter and do not serve the hidden narration; they have been inserted because of a lack of synonyms, so that the sequence of the Latin discourse might be complete.^2 For we have not always been able to find enough words with equivalent meanings, especially among pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections, to construct an alphabet in place of the twenty-four wandering letters.^3 This is clear after the eighth alphabet, where we placed two words outside the order so that we would not leave the sentence defective. Thus we wrote: “with all,” and likewise “with the whole.” The scribe may take whichever two of these he wishes, provided that the Latin discourse is completed. He should do the same elsewhere whenever he finds similar cases. We have adopted double w because of our native speech, since in our German language we often need it.^4 For someone ignorant of Latin speech may write his own hidden material in German beneath a Latin discourse without any difficulty.^5

The rules or cautions to be observed in the operation of this book now follow.

The first rule or caution warns you that, when you wish to announce to an absent friend the secrets of your mind, and he is skilled in the art and possesses the book of the Polygraphia,^6 you should write them as carefully as you can on a small sheet, whether in Latin, in German, or in any other language you wish that can be represented by Roman letters. Then place the sheet so written before you, so that for each letter of the secret you may seek to fit a corresponding word. For this is how skill is acquired in the practice of writing by complete words. We gave an example a little earlier in the preceding material.

The second caution commands you, as has been said, not to take more than one word from any single alphabet in one narration of public Latin speech; otherwise you would confuse both the open sense and the understanding of the mystery, and would wholly draw away from it the friend for whom you had written.^7

Third, you must take the greatest care not through negligence to skip any alphabet from which you have not taken one word corresponding to the secret. Likewise you must see to it that, whenever one or more words occur outside the run of the alphabet, you take the whole upper line or the lower line, and not both.

Fourth, care must be taken that whenever the discourse of the open speech has been brought to a complete sentence, the following word should be taken in the gloss with an initial capital letter, according to the form of the preceding example, in which, following the sense of the Latin discourse, we took large letters at the beginning and small ones for the rest, according to common practice. When the secret of your mind is long, so that it exceeds the narration of the open discourse, begin a third time from the beginning, or, if it is short, let the discourse return from any place you please. No one even moderately experienced in this method will be unable to know where you have begun again. Nor is there need to fear agreement in the discourse, which will vary in the manifest narration together with the hidden one; and whenever one begins again from the start, a new face of the discourse will follow. Continuation may also be made from the end of the first book into the second.^8

Fifth, we warn that whenever you wish to write through this art on an important matter, you should prepare for yourself a small booklet in which you write the secret utterance of your mystery in manifest speech. Whoever sees or reads this booklet will think that no secret lies hidden there; nor, even if he has some suspicion, will he be able to find anything of what you are writing.

Sixth, it should be noted that if you transfer the order of the words throughout the whole Polygraphia by changing each alphabet through metathesis,^9 and write out from it two volumes of the same color, one for yourself and one for any friend, you may write between yourselves with complete security whatever you wish; nor does there live on earth anyone who could [unclear: discover your secrets or those things which you seek].

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^1. The sentence is presented as the concealed plaintext hidden beneath the preceding public cover-text. OCR damage obscures several words, but the likely reading is “Cave tibi ab isto tiro, quia fur est et nequam pessimus, sed tace oro.” ^2. “Public narration” is Trithemius’s overt or cover discourse: a grammatically continuous Latin text whose selected words encode a separate hidden message. ^3. The “twenty-four letters” refer to the classical Latin alphabetic framework used by Trithemius; early modern Latin normally did not treat J and U as separate letters in the modern way. ^4. The doubled “w” is included for vernacular German writing, since Latin alphabets did not normally require it but German words frequently did. ^5. “German” renders the damaged “Thebontico,” evidently standing for the vernacular or Teutonic language as opposed to Latin. ^6. Polygraphia is Trithemius’s system of cryptographic writing by substitution alphabets in which whole Latin words can stand for letters of a hidden message. ^7. “Alphabet” here means one of the ordered substitution lists in the book, not merely the abstract A–Z sequence; each chosen word corresponds to a letter in the concealed text. ^8. The “first book” and “second” refer to the internal divisions of Trithemius’s polygraphic tables, which can be used continuously when a hidden message exceeds the length of one run through the lists. ^9. “Metathesis” means a deliberate transposition or rearrangement of the order of words in the alphabets, producing a personalized key shared only between correspondents.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Warnings on Polygraphic Writing and Secret Reading

The passage gives numbered practical rules for composing, transmitting, and deciphering Trithemius’s polygraphic messages, then claims broader applications for the art while leaving some damaged material unrecoverable.

Fragment Before the Seventh Warning

[unclear]. It can be written by [conjectured: this transposition] in infinitely many ways.

Seventh Warning

Seventh, we warn you that one manner of writing polygraphically^1 is to be used for a person ignorant of Latin^2 speech, and another for someone skilled in it. For the former, all words must be written out whole, without abbreviation, distinctly, completely, handsomely, and entirely legibly, without partition, division, or confusion, lest, deceived by an error, he think one word to be two, or suppose two to be one. [unclear: The following points are to be heeded.]

Eighth Warning

Eighth, provision must be made that the person to whom you write mystically^3 by this art has a book in every respect like your own; otherwise you would write fruitlessly and uselessly, since the writing would not be understood.

Ninth Warning

Ninth, if you wish [unclear] to remain forever secret and hidden, copy out the polygraphy anew, but do not place the letters of the alphabet before the words; then no one will easily suspect the principle of the secret.^4 Yet, so that no difficulty in the mystery may confront either writer or reader, let the letters of the alphabet be written on a slip in the order corresponding to the words, and let a movable piece be fitted to their headings. The letters may also be engraved on a copper plate, so that they can be moved from one row to another.

Tenth Warning

Tenth, it should be known that, although we do not use the Pythagorean Y^5 in German and Latin words, we have nevertheless admitted it on account of Greek speech, so that we might have a doubled twelve.^6 Likewise, among the doubled letters we have accepted [unclear] for the fourth and the twentieth letter, because this is wholly necessary for us in the German language.^7

Eleventh Warning

Eleventh, the person who receives letters written from the polygraphy for reading should know that understanding is required in the act of reading. Therefore, whenever he receives a sheet or little book written polygraphically, he should go to a secret place; with the book of polygraphy opened, which he must have with him, he should examine each word through all the alphabets. When each word represents a letter, he should note it most carefully with chalk on a table, or [conjectured: with ink on paper]. After he has surveyed the whole letter in this way, he should compose the letters into words, and he will easily understand what lay hidden in secret.

Twelfth Warning

Twelfth, kings and princes^8 should take note, especially those who have many [unclear: agents] in different places, for whom it must be guarded against writing to all by one and the same kind of hidden narration. Therefore, so that a ruler may have a distinct secret mode of writing for each person, let him change the entire order of the words as many times as he wishes to have separate modes. In this way he himself will possess all the modes of writing, and no subordinate will understand the mode of another subordinate. The variable modes of secret writing in this art are infinite.

Thirteenth Warning

Thirteenth, it should be noted that, to stop the mouths of those who speak wickedly, we show the truth of this new invention of ours to be possible: we place words in the alphabets of the first book so that they fit and cohere with one another, and, in the form of an exhortation and supplication offered to God, they return as a suitable Latin prayer.^9 Beneath this narration we can conceal whatever secrets occur to us, and write in such a way to a friend perfected in the art that, even if all the men in the whole world were gathered into one, they could not discover the secrets lying hidden beneath open speech, provided that the matter has been rightly ordered.

Fourteenth Warning

Fourteenth, it should be known that in this very invention and in our polygraphy [conjectured: certain things are contained] far better than precepts: namely, how you will be able to instruct people ignorant of Latin speech within a few days, not to say hours, so that they may easily write, read, speak, and understand Latin, not indeed all things universally, but, in a fixed manner, whatever necessary matter occurs to them in their affairs. Likewise, [there is] a certain way by which you may make known securely, safely, and most secretly to a far-distant friend skilled in the practice of the art all the conceptions of your mind, without writings and while the messenger is ignorant; indeed, sometimes even without a messenger, naturally and without any superstition, danger, or fear.^10 But let these things remain buried in their own hidden places, [unclear], since it neither pleases me nor is at all useful to cast precious stones to the wind and to accomplish difficult things without the fruit of gratitude. Finally, beneath these matters lie mysteries of no small subtlety concerning medicines, herbs, plants, precious stones, rivers, the members of the human body, brute animals, [unclear], nations, cosmography, astronomy, and the seven liberal arts,^11 and also concerning [unclear] and the universal manner of visible and invisible things. And, lest we become too prolix, [unclear] serves the mystical teaching of the art of polygraphy.

Fifteenth Warning

Fifteenth, note that all these things which we have handed down in the Polygraphia are, in truth, only introductions and are small in comparison with [unclear].

---

^1. Polygraphy here denotes Trithemius’s tabular system of many alphabets and equivalent dictiones, or words, used to encode letters; in this preface it is treated both as cipher practice and as a controlled art of composition. ^2. The distinction between recipients ignorant of Latin and those skilled in it is practical: the cover text can be made more or less abbreviated, divided, or grammatically demanding depending on the reader’s competence. ^3. Mystically, Latin mystice, does not necessarily mean supernaturally here; in Trithemius’s cryptographic vocabulary it marks concealed writing whose plain devotional or narrative surface hides another message. ^4. Omitting alphabetic labels from the dictiones turns the polygraphic table into a private codebook; the separate slip or copper plate supplies the movable key known only to sender and receiver. ^5. The Pythagorean Y is ypsilon, traditionally moralized as a forked letter of choice and often called littera Pythagorica in medieval and humanist Latin. ^6. The doubled twelve, Latin duodenarium duplicatum, points to a twenty-four-character working alphabet; Trithemius is explaining why letters not normally needed in Latin or German are admitted for Greek and tabular completeness. ^7. The OCR’s theonrico is best read as Theutonico, German. The comment on doubled letters likely concerns sounds or letter-pairs needed in German orthography but not in a strictly classical Latin alphabet. ^8. The address to kings and princes places the art in diplomatic and administrative secrecy: one ruler can maintain different keys for different agents, so compromise of one channel does not expose the others. ^9. The prayer to God is a cover discourse: a pious supplication can be syntactically valid Latin while simultaneously carrying the hidden message selected from the alphabets. ^10. Trithemius’s insistence on natural communication without superstition reflects his recurrent apologetic effort to distinguish licit hidden arts from suspect or demonic magic. ^11. Cosmography, astronomy, and the seven liberal arts mark an encyclopedic scope: the tables can be filled with domain-specific vocabularies, not merely neutral cipher tokens.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Explanation of Obscurities in the Second Book of Polygraphy

Trithemius explains the structure and use of the second book of the Polygraphia, warns about alphabetic errors in copying or printing, and contrasts polygraphic substitution with the deeper concealments of steganography.

[Conjectured: Some things still remain] to be discovered and written in this very art, concerning which we pass over in silence, lest we seem to boast vainly. For we have given occasion to capable minds to discover greater things than we have either written or perhaps been able to discover. Whoever can add what he knows to the fuller materials already supplied may do so; but whoever cannot should not rashly judge what he does not understand.

Explanation of those matters which seemed rather obscure in the second book of the Polygraphia

In the second book of the Polygraphia,^1 apart from the order and sequence of the words, nothing new has been handed down beyond the first book. Therefore one and the same procedure will apply in both books, and we carefully warn the diligent reader that everything we said must be observed in the first book must also be observed in the second.

In the narrative content of the explicit prayer, a difference is seen to arise, since the former is composed concerning our Lord, the Son of God,^2 whereas this one is directed to his mother, the ever untouched Virgin.^3 In the second book there are 308 alphabets prefixed to the words in order, under diverse branches of subject matter. At the beginning, the discourse is directed to our Lady herself; afterward the Lord’s Prayer^4 is expanded under twenty-four alphabets; then the Angelic Salutation^5 is appended; next the Salve Regina;^6 and finally a brief prayer concerning Saint Anne, mother of the holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.^7

In all books of the Polygraphia one must take care that no single word be repeated in any alphabetic order, that is, that it not be entered twice, and that none be omitted, because this would create great confusion for the reader. Therefore the greatest effort must be made to ensure that copies are in every respect emended and corrected with the utmost care, lest the person writing fall into error. But if, through the negligence of the scribe or the carelessness of the printer, you find some word duplicated under one alphabet, erase the last one and put in its place another suitable word which has not already appeared in the same alphabet.

You should also know that these two books of our Polygraphia are sufficient and serviceable for the promised operation. Through them, not only will you be able at any time to write and report to friends, with complete safety and security, whatever you wish, but you will also be able, without any suspicion, to make a person wholly ignorant of the Latin language, provided he knows only how to form letters, a participant in this art and instructed in it. Yet because this method of secret writing, beneath a long narrative of open discourse, encloses rather few portions of the concealed intention, perhaps it will be useful only in great and difficult matters, especially among those who like leisure and do not dislike labor.

Accordingly we shall give, in four frequently used books, easier methods of writing, although they are not altogether free from suspicion of hidden intent, because they would repel the understanding of very many people. In the Steganographia,^8 however, there are richer methods of writing with the utmost secrecy and without any suspicion, where it is not a word that represents a letter, but rather one whole word that represents another whole word appropriate to the mystery.^9

Let us set down an example of this matter. Suppose you wished to warn a friend about some imminent danger under such a narrative of words: “Melancius, Tiberius, John, and Peter, servants of the count of Asoro, have conspired to turn upon you for your death; on the fourth day after Lawrence,^10 at night, they will surround your house; consider what you should do.” Steganography would conceal this secret as follows: “I beg you, friend, by charity, that you immediately send me ten florins with the bearer of the present letter, since they are very necessary to me for the construction of a certain [unclear]; I shall faithfully repay them to you.” Who would seek or suspect this secret in the foregoing discourse?

Let us place the same thing under yet another narrative: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who willed to become human for us, to suffer, and to die, have mercy on me, an unworthy sinner, now and in the terrible hour of my death.” Behold: one hidden sentence of your heart you have, by steganographic limits, under a twofold narrative, or hidden under a shorter discourse. The whole world will not even be able to suspect it, nor, if it searched for a hundred years, to find it, even if all the learned were to come together.

Finally, steganography teaches how to hide this same secret sentence of your heart not only in one or two written narratives, but in almost infinitely many, by the method just described, and to announce it to whomever you wish most secretly, most secretly, and most secretly. All such aids, separated in this way, can also be changed by metabole.^11

---

^1. The Polygraphia is Trithemius’s printed cryptographic work; here he comments on its second book, whose “alphabets” are ordered word-lists used for disguised substitution rather than ordinary phonetic alphabets. ^2. The phrase refers to Christological devotional material used as cover text: the apparent prayer supplies innocent words while a concealed message is recovered through the polygraphic system. ^3. “Ever untouched Virgin” renders the Marian formula of perpetual virginity; the second book’s cover discourse is Marian rather than directly Christological. ^4. The Lord’s Prayer, Pater noster, is the prayer taught by Jesus in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4; Trithemius uses its familiar devotional language as an organizing cover for alphabetic tables. ^5. The Angelic Salutation, Ave Maria, begins with Gabriel’s greeting to Mary in Luke 1:28 and Elizabeth’s blessing in Luke 1:42; in this passage it is treated as a textual unit for cryptographic expansion. ^6. Salve Regina is the Marian antiphon “Hail, Queen,” here one of the devotional texts under which the second book arranges its substitution vocabulary. ^7. Saint Anne is the traditional mother of Mary, known from apocryphal and later devotional tradition rather than from the canonical Gospels; Trithemius’s phrasing makes her the endpoint of the Marian sequence. ^8. The Steganographia is Trithemius’s earlier and more controversial work on concealed communication. In this passage he distinguishes it from the Polygraphia by claiming that it can hide whole words beneath whole-word cover discourse. ^9. “Mystery” translates mysterium, here not merely a theological secret but the hidden communicative content encoded beneath the visible wording. ^10. “After Lawrence” most likely means after the feast of Saint Lawrence, observed on 10 August, making the example’s timing “the fourth day after Lawrence” a calendrical cue. ^11. Metabole is a technical term from Greek metabolē, “change” or “alteration”; Trithemius uses it for a procedure by which the auxiliary forms of concealment can be varied.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Polygraphia Books Three and Four: Cipher Explanations

Trithemius explains how the third and fourth books of the Polygraphia encode messages through artificial words selected from alphabetic tables and, in the fourth book, through second-letter extraction.

[unclear]. Why, however, the work entitled Steganographia^1 should remain buried in silence has been said sufficiently at the beginning of our Polygraphia;^2 for that reason it did not need to be repeated there. Let it lie hidden, then, lest it be seen by the ungrateful.

Explanation of the obscure matters contained in the third book of our Polygraphia

In the third book of the Polygraphia^3 we transmitted a newly devised method of writing secretly: safe and secure enough, certainly, but to ignorant observers suspicious because of the hidden secret. No one, however learned, will discover the concealed mystery without knowledge of the instructions, since [conjectured: he cannot understand even what is written openly].

We arranged fabricated words^4 which in themselves represent nothing except the letters of the alphabet^5 placed before them. Through these you will be able to write all the secrets of your mind and make them known most securely to a friend, however far absent. But when those untrained and ignorant of the art see the writing, they will think it is some foreign language, and they will have no idea what it contains.

When, then, you wish to disclose something to an absent person by the method of this book, take care first that you distinguish every single word properly from the others, and that each word is very clearly different from another. Otherwise the person to whom you write may take one word as two, or two as one, and that would produce a serious error.

Let us set down an example of this matter: “Abrin madon badis, cadulur pauf, adin loroff mafara damis, boda omo dromi drus uares maftren pba lares medas raflirtma debor tara, mefen bauu pbofat, galos, profol fane lemoros, arofo cabillneo, bamol belletrbamill felia doron bubur rodex.” In this narrative of fictitious speech there is contained the following brief sentence of hidden meaning, [conjectured: a friend’s warning to a friend about danger]: “Do not come to court, because the king is angry with you.”^6

You see how easy, safe, and secure this method is for writing and reporting whatever you wish to a friend who understands it. In all cases, however, you must beware, as was said before, that you take no more than one word from any alphabet, and that you do not skip any alphabet either. Whenever, in composing the narrative expression, you have continued to the end of the book while the secret of your mind is not yet complete, begin again from the beginning, and do this as often as necessary.

Nevertheless, anyone may, at his own discretion, change, alter, improve, or add more words to these words of ours, provided that he takes care over their consonance, [conjectured: so that it does not break out awkwardly into ugly-sounding words].

Explanation of the fourth book of our Polygraphia

In the fourth book of the Polygraphia^7 we placed words constructed by us in a similar fashion under alphabetic order, but it differs deliberately from the preceding book in one respect. In the preceding book, the words contain no property of any other kind except that they represent the letters set before them at the head. In the fourth book, however, each individual word that we handle contains its own proper force and nevertheless designates the prefixed letters. It has what it displays outwardly, because the second letter of each word is always assigned to the hidden mystery, as we shall make clear by the following example.

“Ecorach banafar [conjectured: dulayu femalas], ebotion furiel anephor icbaras, bularat uimalo tropon tumelech amafar.” To understand this mystery, take only the second letter from each word, and you will find hidden this sentence: [conjectured: “Beware this man”].^8 For the second letter in Ecorach is c; in banafar, a; in dulayu, u; in femalas, e. Join these four letters and they make this word: Caue, “Beware.” Proceed in the same way through the rest, up to the end of the book; and if some hidden mystery remains to be written, return to the beginning as often as needed, until the secret has been completed in full.

In this most secret method of writing, if someone has been trained by long use, he does not need the book, but will easily compose ex tempore words suited to his purpose. Someone less practiced in composition, however, necessarily requires a copy of the book from which to write. The reader will not need an exemplar of the volume, since without the book, by taking the second letters everywhere, he will easily be able to find what lies hidden.

Nevertheless, in great, difficult, or dangerous matters this method of writing should not be trusted as sufficient, because the hidden mystery could by chance be discovered through the diligence of a skilled person.^9 This mode of writing can also be changed by an intelligent man, so that the signifying letters are placed in the third or fourth position of the word, with the words altered.

Brief explanation concerning the fifth book of our Polygraphia

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^1. Steganographia is Trithemius’s earlier and more controversial work on concealed communication; in this passage he treats it as something deliberately kept “buried in silence,” in contrast to the more openly cryptographic Polygraphia. ^2. Polygraphia is Trithemius’s systematic treatise on many forms of writing and cipher. The present Clavis Polygraphiae functions as an explanatory key to obscure procedures in that work. ^3. The “third book” here uses tables of artificial vocabulary: the sender chooses one word from each successive alphabetic section to represent the intended plaintext letters. ^4. Latin dictiones coctae, literally “cooked-up words,” denotes invented vocables made to resemble meaningful speech while functioning as cipher units. ^5. “Alphabet” refers not merely to A–Z as a sequence but to the ordered cipher tables in the Polygraphia. Trithemius warns that the operator must take exactly one item from each table in order and then cycle back to the beginning. ^6. The example plaintext, “Do not come to court, because the king is angry with you,” illustrates the practical political use-case of the cipher: an apparently foreign or nonsensical message conceals urgent court intelligence. ^7. The fourth book changes the method: the artificial words still have their alphabetic headings, but the operational secret lies in an internal letter of each word. ^8. The example is a second-letter extraction. The OCR form “Caue buncuirit” is recoverable as Caue hunc uirum / Cave hunc virum, “Beware this man,” because the listed second letters spell that sentence. ^9. Trithemius here acknowledges a cryptanalytic vulnerability: a practiced reader might detect the hidden text by inspecting internal letter positions, so he recommends shifting the significant letters to the third or fourth position for greater security.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

The Fifth Book: Letter Transposition and Tabular Alphabets

Trithemius explains the fifth book’s systems of secret writing by alphabetic transposition, including straight and reversed tables, sample enciphered phrases, and the beginning of a discussion of more complex schemata.

In the fifth book of the Polygraphia^1 we present various methods of secret writing by the transposition of ordinary letters,^2 arranged in such a coordinated order that, under their covering, we shall be able to write and communicate everything safely to an absent friend. For, to speak in our usual manner, the progression of the transposition of letters is almost infinite, since from a single alphabet, by permutation, innumerable alphabets are generated.

First we have described a straight table containing twenty-four alphabets,^3 through the understanding of which so many alphabets can be copied that they may be compared with the stars counted in the firmament of heaven.^4 For as many characters as there are in that table, so many times do hundreds of thousands of alphabets arise from the art in ordered sequence. Next it has a reversed distributive table, which changes into another table as often as you alter the first letter at its head. The first letter in the straight table is b, and in the reversed table [unclear]. Whenever you put any other letter in their place, you will find the table altered, wholly new in every respect, and this indeed tends toward infinity.

Then we expand the first straight table, placing above each transposed black letter the letter that it represents, written at its head in red minium,^5 so that we might provide the reader with an easier method of writing. The method of this writing is as follows: in the first black alphabet take one letter of the hidden sentence, from the second another, from the third a third, and so consequently up to the end. When you reach that point, remember to return to the order of the first alphabet as many times as needed, until you have completed the secret mystery of your mind in concealment. But so that you may see the order, let us give an example: “Hxpf gfbmcç fusib gmbte gxbsr ege rbd qopma uuwu. wfxegk ak.mr qxyx.” The meaning of this mysterious discourse is this: “Avoid this man, because he is a bad thief, a deceiver, a liar, and unjust.”^6

Now you see already, reader, how remarkably the transposition of the letters of the alphabet renders the table, since there is no one who, without knowledge of it, could penetrate this secret. For this method of writing surpasses every common transposition of letters, in which each letter is always changed from one alphabetic series into another.

From the varied table also, which we have expanded in a similar distribution by order, let us set down this example by way of introduction: “Rdkt,tnvb,tevq,lnf,fdrgb,vfd.” The sense of this secret is as follows: “Beware of this man, who is bad.”^7 And note that, just as under the example of the straight table already set down, we have led the hidden series from the beginning throughout the whole of it, and thereafter, by continuing similarly through the reversed table, we make the little wheels of the circle, as you see at the beginning of the straight table. Hence it must be considered that one series of writing can be carried through both tables, just as we have already done in the demonstration of the first example, or, if you prefer, through one table alone, as we judged sufficient in the second. This will not create difficulty for the reader to whom you send the hidden message, since he will easily understand everything if he has had even a little experience in the art. A very strong instrument that increases knowledge is frequent practice in any art.^8

After the expansion of the tables there follows a set of schemata,^9 in which there is not only a simple transposition of letters, but also an ordered transposition of one letter over another. For schema in Greek is called transpositio in Latin.^10 First, therefore, what we demonstrated in the expansion of the signs of the letters, we afterwards reduced into a schema. In these schemata there is indeed a highly remarkable operation. There are twenty-four alphabets in it. In the first there is no intervening letter; in the second, one; in the third, two; in the fourth, three; in the fifth, four; in the sixth, five; in the seventh, six; in the eighth, seven; in the ninth, eight; in the tenth, nine; in the eleventh, finally, ten; and so consequently up to the twenty-fourth alphabet, in which twenty-three letters intervene. Afterwards the return is made similarly by order to the beginning. The method in the schemata for writing a mystery is likewise the same as that observed in the tables of letter transposition: as will be seen in the writing according to the rule of the schemata, from each black alphabet only one letter is to be taken, which the letters written in red at the head demonstrate. For the understanding of this [the text breaks off].

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^1. Polygraphia is Trithemius’s major printed work on cryptographic and steganographic writing; this passage belongs to the Clavis Polygraphiae, a key or explanatory apparatus for deciphering and using its systems. ^2. “Transposition of ordinary letters” here means cryptographic alteration using the common alphabet, not occult spirit-writing: the plaintext is concealed by systematic substitution across ordered alphabets. ^3. Trithemius’s “twenty-four alphabets” reflect the early-modern Latin alphabetic set normally used for such tables, before the later regular separation of i/j and u/v in modern typography. ^4. The comparison with the stars in the firmament is a conventional hyperbolic image for innumerability, but it also suits Trithemius’s broader interest in ordered celestial and cryptographic systems. ^5. Minium is red lead pigment used for rubrication; Trithemius distinguishes the black cipher alphabets from red guide letters that identify the intended plaintext equivalents. ^6. The example illustrates a polyalphabetic procedure: successive plaintext letters are enciphered according to successive alphabets, then the sequence returns to the first alphabet when exhausted. ^7. The Latin plaintext behind this second example is damaged in OCR as “Hunc caeuto uiri, qui malus”; it is recoverable as a warning formula, probably “Beware of this man, who is bad.” ^8. The sentence paraphrases a common pedagogical maxim: skill in an art is acquired and strengthened by repeated exercise; here it specifically reassures the legitimate correspondent who possesses the key. ^9. The OCR repeatedly prints “orcbema/orcbematũ”; the sense and the following Greek-Latin gloss show that Trithemius is referring to schemata, ordered tabular arrangements for ciphering. ^10. Trithemius’s etymological gloss is loose: Greek schēma means form, figure, or arrangement; he equates it functionally with Latin transpositio because the cipher depends on arranged displacement of letters.

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Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Moving-Wheel Transposition and the Sixth Book’s Numerical Alphabets

The passage explains a moving-wheel method of letter transposition, then introduces the sixth book’s character alphabets and Trithemius’s adaptation of Hebrew and Greek alphabetic numeration for Latin cipher use.

Let us set down examples. It gives: ifyqyn. bdyen. jblct. sxfol. inq.^1 The meaning of this is: “Beware this man, because he is wicked.” When, in writing, [conjectured: you have reached the end through the movement of the wheel], and the secret undertaking in your mind has not yet been completed, you should know that you must return to the beginning as often as necessary, until the hidden matter has been fully completed.^2 And know that from one moving wheel of letters there are constructed as many alphabets as the diligent investigator may wish to have. In short, this method of writing by the moving wheel, that is, by transitions and leaps, is the most secure of all, because the transposition of letters arises not in a uniform way but in many varied forms.^3 It should also be noted that true and full knowledge of the table and the moving wheel, if you are [conjectured: industrious] and studious, will give you understanding of all writings composed in any way by transposition of letters. And it is a great secret, known to few, that one can discover all the meanings hidden in any transposition of letters.

Brief Explanation of the Sixth and Last Book of the Polygraphia^4

In the sixth and last book of the Polygraphia we have brought together [conjectured: the characters of certain ancients], which they used in place of letters, so that anyone who wishes may appropriate from them an alphabet of his own; for one who is at least moderately skilled, if he wishes, can devise for himself other and more attractive forms. All the symbols of this book are sufficiently apt and clear, and therefore they need no explanation, or only a brief one. Those, however, which we have [conjectured: devised extemporaneously] require a definite explanation, lest they appear to have been placed there by [unclear].

First of all, we made all Latin letters numerical in the manner of the Hebrews and Greeks, considering it a disgrace if we should be found inferior to them in this respect.^5 As for the fact that we duplicated certain letters, this was so that the series might extend to an infinite number; the Jews did this very thing under the compulsion of necessity, and the Greeks, because of their shortage of letters, admitted certain marks into their numerical system, since they could not duplicate letters. We too, because we are constrained by a comparable lack of letters, admitted two signs: one, [conjectured: the sign which our scribes put for et], no matter whether it is written [unclear] or &, provided it represents its value in the number; and another, 9, which our scribes use indifferently as an abbreviation for con and com; here, in the order of numbers, it represents [conjectured: six hundred].^6

By necessity we also duplicated [unclear] letters, namely r, s, and the forms of s [unclear]; [conjectured: one curved form signifies one hundred, long s two hundred, and closed s three hundred]. Moreover, the double w, which we placed in the order of the alphabet on account of the German language, represents the final letter, and in the sequence of numbers it represents one thousand.^7

Let us append a table of this new addition of ours to the system of numbers, so that anyone who wishes to know the method may have a sure demonstration before his eyes. For what has always been easy for the Hebrews and Greeks will not be impossible for us. The table of numbers follows.

Table of Numbers

The OCR of the printed table is not sufficiently reliable for individual numerical entries. It presents letters and compound signs, with overbars and doubled forms, arranged against values from units through tens, hundreds, thousands, and beyond: [unclear table].

We have sufficiently shown the mode of numbering by Latin letters in the manner of the Hebrews and Greeks, and have arranged them suitably by [unclear], although this was given earlier in the sixth book. By progressing in this way we have brought our number-series to [conjectured: hundreds of thousands] in a [unclear] arrangement, and we openly declare that it can be extended to infinity. If this method of numbering displeases anyone, he can easily devise a better one.

In imitation also of the Normans,^8 from the numerical letters prescribed above we have arranged a new alphabet, by which you will be able safely to write to an absent friend and report whatever secret you wish.^9 This method of writing is so secret, and so [conjectured: new and unheard before our time], that it seems to me utterly impossible that it could be understood by anyone without the aid of a teacher. But now let us set down its alphabet.

The Alphabet

The table that follows maps ordinary letters to numerical or compound signs, but the OCR is too corrupt for a dependable full reconstruction. The opening sequence appears to pair a with 1, b with 2, c with 3, d with 4, e with 5, and then continues through compound forms such as ia, ib, ic, ka, kb, kc, and kd: [unclear table].

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^1. The five groups are an enciphered specimen immediately glossed by Trithemius as Hunc caveto virum, quia malus est; the sample demonstrates decipherment rather than providing an independent Latin sentence. ^2. The “moving wheel” is the passage’s practical cipher device: a rotating alphabetic disk or wheel whose end may be reached before the plaintext message is complete, requiring the writer to return to the beginning. ^3. “Transposition” here means the systematic displacement of letters in a cipher alphabet. Trithemius’s “transitions and leaps” describe non-uniform shifts, making the substitution harder to detect by simple alphabetic comparison. ^4. Polygraphia is Trithemius’s printed cryptographic work; this passage belongs to the Clavis Polygraphiae, a key or explanatory commentary that teaches how to use and decipher the alphabets. ^5. Trithemius is comparing Latin with Hebrew and Greek alphanumeric notation: Hebrew letters and Greek letters could function as numerals, while Greek alphabetic numerals also used special archaic signs to complete the series. ^6. The two added scribal signs are the abbreviation for et (commonly represented by & or related notae) and the 9-shaped abbreviation for con or com. The OCR leaves parts of the assigned numerical values uncertain. ^7. Trithemius justifies w by reference to German usage; Latin inherited no classical letter w, but early-modern German orthography required it, making it useful for extending the cipher alphabet and numeral series. ^8. The OCR reads Nortmannorum, likely “Northmen” or “Normans”; the exact historical model intended for this alphabet is uncertain from the damaged text. ^9. The “absent friend” frames the alphabet as a practical system for secret correspondence, one of the central uses of Trithemius’s polygraphic alphabets.

Clavis Polygraphiae — untranslated chunk full_chunk_0126

Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Roman-Numeral Alphabets and Astronomical Disguise

Trithemius explains two enciphering alphabets, demonstrates their hidden plaintexts, and recommends disguising numerical cipher tables as astronomical material keyed to the zodiac.

You now have here this alphabet, drawn from Roman numeral letters, in imitation of the Normans,^1 by which you will be able to write and communicate with complete safety to an absent friend whatever you wish; and no one will be able to penetrate the secret of your [unclear] unless he is someone who knows the hidden principle of the art.^2 For all who see the writing will suppose that the letters are merely transposed, and they will labor in vain over their computation.

Let us posit an example: Iaalfid ifteb, teifeifegetcckbib. cakebid, i et ckbk. gidibid. eigib. teieiggb ibkg- &kif. iaiaibifid, ibecidak. eib. ieci et kaib. The concealed meaning of this writing is as follows: “Beware of the bearer of the present letter, because he is a very bad man: a thief, robber, liar, and worthless fellow.” From this illustrative demonstration it is easy to understand how secure and protected this method of writing is for every language known to the writer, and for every cause or business, however difficult, secret, important, or lengthy.

Nor do I think that there is any person living in the world who, by his own ingenuity and without a teacher, could read this writing here. For all who see it will judge it to be nothing other than transposed letters; and when they cannot acquire an understanding of them, at length wearied by despair, they will cease from investigation. Whatever has been written will remain hidden. For no one, as I judge, will penetrate this technique of concealed writing by his own powers, unless he has my Polygraphia, or the key to it, in hand, or has been instructed by someone else.^3

From these same numeral letters, furthermore, many other alphabets can also be supplied according to the order of numbering, when the alphabetic sequence of writing is begun not from unity but from any other following number. But in making this progression you should know that care must be taken lest any one letter be forced to represent more than [conjectured: two] countable values. Hence, when you have come to w, that is, ten times one hundred thousand,^4 halt your step and do not go further, lest the multitude of characters confuse the beauty of writing by corrupting it. For after unity, one hundred, and ten times one hundred thousand, these inserted characters will suffice for almost thirty individual alphabets. Yet the method of the first alphabet, beginning with unity, is the more beautiful for enclosing the secrets of writings insofar as it is shorter and simpler. It makes the writing less winding and contorted.

We have also arranged another alphabet with Latin letters distributed in a confused order and transposed without a fixed rule; by imitation of it, others can be made in almost numberless variety. Its likeness is set down here:

o a t g c n o t p b b β a o k u q c d u i k b p n x r d w k y q m y i e e x l d r l et s f et m g s f w

Let us also posit examples of this alphabet, so that we may prove the secret in a composition: Gquog, ouqi, ykar, din, uc, qacquxua, riqdikus si, acquirzxrlq, fxti, idta, ykocqoaqukg, ue, coddotauo, ofoqui, fukg, ci, bidog. This writing contains in itself the following sense: “You know, friend, that the king has decreed in council that you must be killed. Therefore flee as quickly as possible into Narragonia^5 from his face, lest you perish.” This method of writing too is tortuous and subject to no regular norm, since, at one’s pleasure, it can be varied and changed by accidental transposition as much as anyone wishes.^6

Next it must be noted that at the end of the text of the book of the Polygraphia we transmitted another method of writing by numerical signs, which people commonly call ciphers.^7 Under their veil you will write safely to an absent friend whatever you wish, and no one ignorant of the art will be able either to discover or even to suspect the hidden secret, especially if the rules that we have given above concerning them are observed with careful caution.

This is the point: that the sheet should be formed in the manner of an astronomical table,^8 as if it contained something belonging to calculation [unclear], so that, between the numerals, there may be inserted characters for the signs or planets.^9 Thus if by chance it should fall into anyone’s hands, he will be led by its resemblance to a table to suppose that there is nothing secret in the written form, but will think that everything pertains to some astronomical computation. We have arranged twelve alphabets according to the number twelve and the signs of the zodiac,^10 assigning to each a number of twenty-four in place of letters; the first of these, that of Aries,^11 begins from unity and ends at twenty-four. Yet we advise in matters of greater [unclear].

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^1. “Normans” here names the alleged model for a cipher alphabet made from Roman numeral forms. Trithemius often grounds artificial scripts in ethnographic or historical attributions, whether or not they correspond to a recoverable medieval Norman practice. ^2. The “hidden principle of the art” is the operational key of the cipher: the rule mapping visible signs to plaintext letters. In the Clavis Polygraphiae, such rules explain how apparently meaningless or transposed writing is to be read. ^3. Polygraphia is Trithemius’s major printed work on many-mode secret writing; the Clavis presents itself as the explanatory “key” to those alphabets and tables. ^4. The OCR is damaged around the large-number notation. The phrase appears to identify w with a value of “ten times one hundred thousand,” i.e. 1,000,000, in an extended numeral-letter sequence. ^5. “Narragonia” is retained as transmitted by the OCR. It may be a corrupted place-name, but the surrounding plaintext clearly treats it as the destination of flight from the king’s order. ^6. “Accidental transposition” means a deliberately irregular rearrangement of alphabetic correspondences, not a systematic Caesar-style shift; Trithemius stresses that the alphabet can be varied at will. ^7. The word printed as 3feras is almost certainly an OCR corruption for cifras or a related early form of “ciphers,” numerical signs used for secret writing. ^8. An astronomical table is an effective cover because columns of numbers and signs already look like legitimate computational apparatus in early-modern astronomy and astrology. ^9. The planets and zodiacal signs function here as camouflage for the cipher table, not necessarily as operative astrological causes in the encipherment. ^10. The twelve-sign zodiac supplies the organizing frame for twelve separate alphabets, matching the standard astrological division beginning with Aries. ^11. Aries, the ram, is the first sign of the zodiac in the conventional astrological order; Trithemius assigns its alphabet the numbers 1-24.

Clavis Polygraphiae — untranslated chunk full_chunk_0127

Style C scholarly rendering. GPT-5.5 fresh translation with footnoting against the angels / planets reference table. Source register: ocr_damaged_prose; OCR quality estimate: 2/5.

Numerical Signs and the Colophon to the Clavis Polygraphiae

Trithemius closes by explaining that his numerical cipher tables need no further exemplification, describes an overline notation for very large numbers, and appends the 1518 colophon and a damaged tabular index of ternions.

The opening clause is too damaged for connected translation: [unclear]. Yet whoever wishes to make prudent use of his own natural ingenuity will find subtler things from what we have provided; and what we have handed down in a form not sufficiently polished he will easily improve.

In the [conjectured: numerical schema]^1 great secrets lie hidden. Whoever understands it properly will penetrate many mysteries of numbers.^2 It was not our task, nor did reason require, to pour everything out publicly; in our judgment it has been enough to do what we have done for the instruction of those to whom our inventions may one day be pleasing. Thus they may possess, for their own industry, many further methods [unclear], not only for secret writing [conjectured: as they may wish to put it to use], but also, under our guidance, may extend these methods into many better and subtler forms, according to each person’s capacity for understanding.

Likewise, since the numerical schemata have been sufficiently opened and made plain in their proper places, and their tables set out at the same time, there was no need to repeat here what had already been said, lest excessive prolixity produce weariness in the readers. Nor did I think it necessary to give an example of secret writing by means of numerical figures, since there is no difficulty in learning the method for anyone endowed with even moderate intelligence.

With equal ease the very ancient signs of numbering, which we have brought back into the light, can be understood and grasped; by them the knowledge of numbers is extended to infinity. For whenever a small number has a stroke placed above it, a thousandfold value is designated.^3 Thus [overlined numeral unclear] signifies ten thousand; [overlined numeral unclear], one hundred thousand; [overlined numeral unclear], a thousand thousand; [overlined numeral unclear], ten times a thousand thousand; [overlined numeral unclear], a hundred times a thousand thousand; [overlined numeral unclear], a thousand times a thousand thousand; and so onward, as far and as much as one wishes to proceed in numbering, without limit.

End of the Key of Polygraphy

Here ends the Key of Polygraphy of Johannes Trithemius, abbot of [unclear: Peapolitanus], addressed to Maximilian Caesar.^4 Printed under the direction of Johannes Haselberg of The Hague, bookseller, in the year from the birth of Christ 1518, in the month of July.^5

Order of the Ternions of the Polygraphy

The following page is headed Order of the Ternions of the Polygraphy.^6 It is a tabular cipher index rather than connected prose. Its upper labels are partly legible: “Polygraphy,” “toward divine things,” “a table or little index,” “to memory,” and [unclear]. The body of the table consists of isolated tokens and phrase-fragments keyed by letters, many of them devotional or moral: “God,” “saints,” “creator,” “men,” “kingdom,” “brothers,” “God,” “piety,” “shepherd,” “Christ,” “peace,” Our Father, “holy faith,” “let your will be done,” “on earth ... bread,” “do not lead us,” “Jesus Christ,” “advocate,” “mother of life,” “most holy,” “life,” and “virgin.”^7 The remaining entries are too corrupted by OCR and page damage to translate responsibly and must remain [unclear].

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^1. The OCR form “orchemate” is almost certainly a corruption of schemate or a related form: Trithemius is referring back to the numerical tables and procedures used for ciphering in the Clavis Polygraphiae. ^2. “Mysteries of numbers” here belongs to Trithemius’s mixed cryptographic and arithmological vocabulary: number is both a practical encoding device and a bearer of hidden order. ^3. The virgula is an overline or small stroke placed above a numeral. In medieval and early-modern notation it can multiply the written numeral by 1,000; the OCR has lost the underlying numerals in the examples. ^4. Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516), Benedictine abbot and author of the Polygraphia, presents the Clavis as the explanatory key to his systems of secret writing. “Maximilian Caesar” is Emperor Maximilian I, dedicatee of the work. ^5. Johannes Haselberg “de Aia” means Haselberg of The Hague. The colophon dates this printing to July 1518, two years after Trithemius’s death. ^6. Terniones denotes threefold groupings or ordered sets in this tabular apparatus. Pinax sive indiculus means “table or little index,” a key for locating cipher groups rather than a prose section. ^7. The “Our Father” fragments correspond to the Lord’s Prayer, especially Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4; the table breaks the prayer into reusable cipher tokens.