Polygraphia (book)

Polygraphia is a cryptographic work written by Johannes Trithemius published in 1518 dedicated to the art of steganography.[1]

Polygraphia (book)
Copy of Polygraphia
AuthorJohannes Trithemius
Original titlePolygraphia
CountryGermany
LanguageLatin
GenreCryptographic, steganography
Publication date
1518
Published in English
N/A
Media typePrinted book
Preceded bySteganography 

It is the oldest known source of the popular Witches' Alphabet, used at large by modern traditions of witchcraft.[2]

Review

It is composed of five books and a collarbone:

  • Book I contains no fewer than 376 alphabets (called "minutiae" by the author) of 24 letters (or "degrees"): each letter corresponds to a Latin word (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) being in total 9,024 different words.
  • Book II presents 1,176 alphabets in three columns which are 3,528 dictions of a "universal language" where each letter is equivalent to an invented word (for example "a" could be farax, basacha, damalo, salec, etc..) but capable of expressing numbers (from 1 to 10 would be Abram, Abrem, Abrim, Abrom, abrum, abral, abrel, abril, abrol and abrul).
Example alphabet.
  • Book III shows 132 invented alphabet dictions, from which one must remove the second letter of each word to write coded messages.
  • Book IV 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 elaborate a big amount of ciphered messages.
  • Book V is a collection of ancient alphabets, Ethiopian, Normands, Magical and Alchemical

The work ends with alphabets of his invention as the "tetragramaticus" formed by 4 characters that are diversified in 24 letters and the "enagramaticus" of 9 characters and 28 letters, from which he gives examples of writings that belongs to something it resembles a natural language.

Relationship with steganography

According to some scholars, both books, Steganographia and Polygraphia, are but a single work presented in two parts: the first is metaphysical and quite theoretical (arriving to hide a full treaty "angelology," or study of angels with their names and hierarchies, between its pages), the second is more practical and is used for encoding messages.

See also

References
  1. Johannes Trithemius (1608). Iohannis Trithemii Steganographia: h.e. ars per occultam scripturam animi sui voluntatem absentibus aperiendi certa. pp. 1–.
  2. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1531). Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

Bibliography
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