{{Short description|1518 book by Johannes Trithemius about steganography}} {{Infobox book | name = Polygraphia (book) | title_orig = Polygraphia | translator = | image = Polygraphiae.jpg | | caption = Copy of ''Polygraphia'' | author = Johannes Trithemius | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = Germany | language = Latin | series = | genre = Cryptographic, steganography | publisher = | release_date = 1518 | english_pub_date = N/A | media_type = Printed book | pages = | preceded_by = Steganography | followed_by = }} <!--{{Infobox book | Name = Polygraph | Title = Polygraphia orig | Translator = | Image = 150px | Texto_imagen = Copy of ''Polygraphia'' | Author = Johannes Trithemius | Artista_cubierta = | Country = | Language = | Subject = Cryptographic, steganography | Publisher = | Fecha_publicación = 1518 | Pages = | Isbn = | Precedido_por = Steganography }}--> '''''Polygraphia''''' is a cryptographic work written by Johannes Trithemius published in 1518 dedicated to the art of steganography.<ref name="Trithemius1608">{{cite book|author=Johannes Trithemius|title=Iohannis Trithemii Steganographia: h.e. ars per occultam scripturam animi sui voluntatem absentibus aperiendi certa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQdCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP1|year=1608|pages=1–}}</ref>
The full title is {{lang|la|Polygraphiae libri sex, Ioannis Trithemii abbatis Peapolitani, quondam Spanheimensis, ad Maximilianum Caesarem}} [Six books of polygraphy, by Johannes Trithemius, abbot at Würzburg, formerly at Spanheim, for the Emperor Maximilian ].
It is the oldest known source of the popular Witches' Alphabet, used at large by modern traditions of witchcraft.<ref>Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1531). ''Three Books of Occult Philosophy''.</ref>
== Review <span class="anchor" id="Ave Maria cipher"></span>== thumb | Example alphabet. It is composed of six books and a decryption key. * Book I contains no fewer than 384 alphabets (called "minutiae" by the author) of 24 letters (or "degrees"): each letter corresponds to a Latin word (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) in reference to Christian prayers and religious texts, being in total 9,216 different words. This is nowadays known as the '''{{lang|la|Ave Maria}} cipher''', which mostly uses only a few of the first alphabets. * Book II contains 308 more Latin alphabets with 7,392 words, again using Latin words with mostly religious context. * Book III presents 132 alphabets in three columns which are 3,168 dictions of a "universal language" where each letter is equivalent to an invented word (for example "a" could be Abra, mada, badar, cadalan, pasa etc.) but capable of expressing numbers (from 1 to 10 would be Abra, Abre, Abri, Abro, Abru, Abras, Abres, Abris, Abros and Abrus). * Book IV shows 2,880 invented alphabet dictions in 120 alphabets. To decode, one must simply extract the second letter of each word. * Book V reproduces two canonical hash tables, one direct with 80 alphabets and the other inverted with 98 alphabets, allowing infinite permutations, to which twelve "planispheric wheels" each comprising six categories of 24 numbers combined with the 24 letters and thus allowing a big amount of elaborate ciphered messages. * Book VI is a collection of (partly alleged) ancient alphabets, including Germanic-Franconian, Ethiopian, Norman, Magical and Alchemical. The work ends with alphabets of his invention such as the "tetragramaticus" formed by 4 characters that are diversified in 24 letters, and the "enagramaticus" of 9 characters and 28 letters, of which he gives examples of writing that seemingly belongs to a natural language.
==Relationship with ''Steganographia''== According to some scholars{{Who|date=December 2020}}, both books, ''Steganographia'' and ''Polygraphia'', are but a single work presented in two parts: the first is metaphysical and quite theoretical (it even hides a complete treatise on "angelology", or the study of angels with their names and hierarchies, between its pages), the second is more practical and is used for encoding messages.
==See also== * History of cryptography * Johannes Trithemius * ''Polygraphia Nova''
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
===Bibliography=== *[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/fabyan.17914.1 Polygraphiae libri sex Ioannis Trithemij] [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/073.html George Fabyan Collection] at the Library of Congress * [http://www.esotericarchives.com/tritheim/stegano.htm ''Steganographia'' (Latin). Digital Edition, 1997] * [https://books.google.com/books?id=fQdCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP1 ''Steganographia'' (Latin). Google Books, 1608 edition] * [https://books.google.com/books?id=gQdCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP1 ''Steganographia'' (Latin). Google Books, 1621 edition] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20050129212947/http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~reedsj/trit.pdf Solved: The Ciphers in Book iii of Trithemius's ''Steganographia''], PDF, 208 kB * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120331051844/http://www.hmml.org/exhibits10/Trithemius/Introduction.html Hill Monastic Manuscript Library article on Trithemius] (includes links to photographs of various Trithemius first editions.) * {{in lang|it}}[http://www.danieleassereto.it/tritemio/default.asp The complete and solved Steganography books] *[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/fabyan.09096.1 ''Steganographia qvæ hvcvsqve a nemine intellecta''] [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/073.html George Fabyan Collection] at the Library of Congress
==External links== {{Commons category|Polygraphia}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Johannes Trithemius |dname=Johannes Trithemius}} * {{CathEncy|wstitle=John Trithemius}} *[http://trithemius.com Trithemius Redivivus] Translations and resources pertaining to the ''Steganographia'' of Johannes Trithemius
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Category:1518 books Category:16th-century books in Latin Category:Cryptography books