03/12/2023

Earlier Specimen (1596) of Spanish Cipher Cp.57 Broken by François Viète

The Spanish cipher Cg.57 is peculiar in its code words in the form like "b24", including not only syllables and words but also single letters.
It has been considered that Cg.57 was introduced around 1600-1601, but a new specimen shows that this cipher was used as early as 1596. (I think this cipher (not this specimen) is among "the latest ciphers of Spain" broken by the French codebreaker, François Viète.)
Another interesting feature of the new specimen is that false spacing seems to be used to confuse the codebreaker, though it cannot be determined whether it was intentional.

I now updated "Ciphers during the Reign of Philip III (1598-1621)" and "Major Types of Ciphers during the Reign of Philip II" to reflect these.

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