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Bound in contemporary stiff vellum (spotting and soiling to the covers.) The contents are in fine condition with just a short worm-trail in the gutter of the first few leaves and the outer edge of the final gathering, far from the text. A single, pinprick wormhole runs through the volume. Discreet marginal paper repair without loss to margin of leaf Ll1. With the engraved title page within fine engraved historiated border, fldg. letterpress table. With an 18th c. ownership inscription on front paste-down ("Jo. Friderici Herbsteri, 1744") of Johann Friedrich Herbster (1711-1763), archivist to the Margraves of Baden-Durlach. A fine copy of this important book on practical and theoretical cryptography and steganography, written by Duke August of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, founder of the great Wolfenbüttel library. The book also includes the text of the prohibited "Steganographia" of the famous cryptographer Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim (1462-1516). Presented as a defence and elucidation of Trithemius' work, the book presents hundreds of cryptographic and steganographic systems. The folding table at the beginning is a synoptic diagram of all systems of encryptions contained in the book; each of the nine books is preceded by a schematic table of contents. The text is replete with woodcut cryptographic diagrams, codes, and alphabets; and printed music. There are three engravings (1 full page) in the text. "This celebrated book on codes and cryptography presents a comprehensive survey of encryption and code-breaking methods, including examples of substitution ciphers, musical ciphers, steganography (the embedding of secret messages in a larger text), graphical encryption in images, and other techniques. The book has some notoriety in the (seemingly endless) Shakespeare-Bacon authorship debate. The title page has been interpreted as a visual code depicting Bacon (a skilled cryptographer) seated at a desk, writing "Shakespeare's" plays, which are then handed to a courier, who delivers them to man with a spear and wearing actor's buskins ("shake-spear")."(Martin J Murphy) Duke August, a 'Wunder unter den Fürsten' (miracle among princes), was one of the most learned men of his time and a master of cryptography. He exchanged coded messages with Johann Valentin Andreae, the supposed 'founder' of Rosicrucianism, mystic, and utopian writer. In his library at Wolfenbüttel, the Duke assembled a collection of 180,000 printed volumes and manuscripts. He mined his collection of cryptological texts (perhaps the largest assembled in the 17th century) for his monumental treatise on the subject. As Strasser (The rise of cryptology in the European Renaissance) writes, with almost two hundred pertinent primary sources, printed and manuscript, in his possession, Duke August made use of just about all of the writers from ancient times up to the 1621 plagiarism of Vigenère's Traicté. Among his sources were the first and second editions of the earliest major cryptologic treatise written in German, Daniel Schwenter's "Steganologia" & "Steganographia", both editions published under the pseudonym of Resene Gibronte Runeclus Hanedi in the 1610s. Schwenter, a professor of mathematics and Oriental languages at the Altdorf (Nuremberg) Academy, drew heavily on Italian source materials, in particular on Porta; his books focus on optical and acoustic telegraphs (and telepathy) and list various ways of communication by means of "sympathetic" inks. Duke August also drew upon the 1593 "Scotographia" of Abram Colorni, the "Jew of Mantua", as he called himself, who served the Hapsburg emperor Rudolph II at Prague. "His elaborate polyalphabetic substitution systems appealed to Duke August so much that no other author except Trithemius occupies more space in his compendium."(See Strasser, The rise of cryptology in the European Renaissance, in History of Information Security, pp.277-325) Duke August and the Elucidation of Trithemius: As stated in the title, the book seeks to e. Seller Inventory # 5039
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