It is well-known that the cipher in the third book of Trithemius' Steganographia was solved in the 1990s. But it was only recently that I learned the cipher was broken in the seventeenth century by one Wolfgang Ernst Heidel, who declared it in his 1676 book but re-enciphered his solution in his own polyalphabetic cipher!
Thomas Ernst, who had solved Trithemius' cipher, deciphered Heidel's cipher and thus proved that Heidel indeed had the solution of Trithemius' cipher. Since Heidel's cipher had apparent word boundaries, a breakthrough was made when he identified the matching ciphertext for "gaza frequens libicos carthago duxit triumphos" known from the solution of Trithemius' cipher.
Thomas Ernst had succeeded in deciphering Trithemius cipher in 1993 and published it in 1996. In 1998, Jim Reeds independently solved it and then found it was already solved before him. Cryptologia (1998, issue 4) carried Jim Reeds' paper together with Thomas Ernst's brief English summary of his original paper in German.
Since it may take time before I have time to study further details, references are given below:
Thomas Ernst, "Schwarzweiße Magie: Der Schlüssel zum dritten Buch der Steganographia des Trithemius", Daphnis: Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur, 25/1 (1996), pp. 1-205
Thomas Ernst, "The Numerical-Astrological Ciphers in the Third Book of Trithemius’s Steganographia", Cryptologia, XXII/4 (1998), pp. 318-341
Jim Reeds, "Solved: the Ciphers in Book III of Trithemius's Steganographia", Cryptologia, XXII/4 (1998), pp.291-317
Thomas Ernst's information about Heidel is on a wordpress-site: Restoring the Steganographia of Trithemius
Thomas Ernst analysed a forged manuscript of the "Steganographia" presumedly from 1521: "Anatomie einer Fälschung: ‘Johannis Trithemij [...] Steganographiæ Lib· 3. cum Clave, tàm generalj, quàm specialj [...] M.D.XXI’", Daphnis: Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit (1400–1750), 30/3-4 (2001), pp. 513-595
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