30/08/2020

Four More French Diplomatic Ciphers Using Figures with Diacritics (1647-1649)

I added four ciphers in "Ciphers Early in the Reign of Louis XIV". They are all homophonic substitution ciphers, with a nomenclature employing Arabic figures with diacritics. Now, it seems certain that this is a standard type of French diplomatic ciphers in at least 1611-1676. The first specimen of this type known to me is Beaumont's cipher (1602) in Henry IV's time (here).

11/08/2020

Henry IV's Cipher from 1590

I added a referene to Savasse (1997) in "French Ciphers during the Reign of Henry IV of France". He reconstructed one of the ciphers of Hurlaut de Maisse, ambassador in Venice. My reconstruction used letters in 1592, while his reconstruction is based on letters from 1590, making it the earliest specimen of Henry IV's ciphers described in this page. (I know one earlier example. I plan to post it some day.) I have quoted Savasse (1997) in the context of Spanish and Florentine ciphers. At that time, this particular cipher did not catch my attention because the name of de Maisse was not familiar to me.

09/08/2020

¿Alguien podrá descifrar las cartas secretas de Felipe II con las llaves que encontré?

(This entry was created by using machine translation. The original post in English is here.)

Recientemente subí un nuevo artículo, "Finding the Keys to Philip II's Cipher Letters to Juan de Vargas Mexia".
Encontré las claves de cuatro cifras utilizadas en las cartas de Felipe II a Juan de Vargas Mexía, embajador en París, que datan de 1577 a 1580 en BnF es.132. Se considera que este volumen incluye materiales interesantes para los historiadores, pero las letras cifradas no se han descifrado (al menos hasta 2012). Las teclas que encontré permiten leer las letras del volumen, pero no puedo hacer el trabajo yo mismo porque no sé español. Espero que las personas versadas en español encuentren lo que escribió el Rey (y Antonio Pérez en algunos casos).
Mi desciframiento preliminar de una carta (16 de diciembre de 1577) está publicado en Academia.edu.

Will Anyone Decipher Philip II's Secret Letters with the Keys I Found?

I recently uploaded a new article, "Finding the Keys to Philip II's Cipher Letters to Juan de Vargas Mexia" and made related changes in "Spanish Ciphers during the Reign of Philip II" and "Unsolved Historical Ciphers."
I found the keys of four ciphers used in Philip II's letters to Juan de Vargas Mexia, ambassador in Paris, dating from 1577 to 1580 in BnF es.132. This volume is considered to include interesting materials for historians, but the letters in cipher have not been deciphered (at least as of 2012). The keys I found allow reading the letters in the volume, but I cannot do the work myself because I do not know Spanish. I hope people versed in Spanish will find what was written by the King (and Antonio Perez in some cases).