A couple of weeks ago, I posted details of an interesting ciphertext I’d first blogged about back in 2009 (based on some photocopies of photographs taken decades ago by the Warburg Institute that I’d seen back then). It was in the margins of BNF Cod. Fonds Latin 7272, in the section containing a book on judicial astrology by Genoese nobleman Andalò di Negro: and so I dubbed it the “Paris 7272 Cipher”.
When (some seven years later) I returned to the cipher, I found that the BNF had made scans of it available via their excellent gallica.fr website: from these I was able to extract good quality images and build up a complete set of the ciphertext fragments on a page at the Cipher Foundation.
Back on Cipher Mysteries, I pointed out that even though there appeared to be numerical fractions, there were in fact some repeated words (which suggested that it was a simple cipher): and that, somewhat unusually, the ciphertext appeared to have been written right-to-left. In a comment to that page, Philip Neal then pointed out that many of the marginalia coincided with discussion of the twenty-eight mansions of the moon in the main text: and suggested that the two might therefore be linked in some way.
Marco Ponzi
Nicely, Marco Ponzi was then able to weave all these observations together with his Latin and astrology knowledge to (mostly) crack the cipher, and posted his findings as a comment on Stephen Bax’s site. I’ve since checked that he got it right: and yes, Marco basically nailed it.
The Paris 7272 cipher has plenty of unusual features that make it tricky to recognize as a ciphertext: not only was it written right-to-left, the top half of the fraction-like shapes was the letter “L”, with the plaintext vowel following it placed immediately beneath it – and because many of the cipher shapes used for vowels resembled Arabic numbers, this made them visually resemble fractions. Also somewhat awkwardly for would-be decryptors, several enciphered letter-shapes are very similar (“n” and “o”, and “m” and “c”). All of these aspects together formed quite an effective first layer of disguise, one of steganography rather than of cryptography per se.
Moreover, the writer has also used the common European trope of placing a line over text to denote a nasalization and/or an omitted ‘n’ as part of the ciphertext, which makes it hard to read in places even if you do happen to know its alphabet. And the writer also had quite scrappy writing in places, which also didn’t help. Had the encipherer avoided the mistake of repeating planet names as free-standing words, I suspect Marco could well have had great difficulty decrypting it: it wasn’t easy.
Zodiac Angel Names
Over the last few days, I’ve pursued Marco Ponzi’s decryption a little further, with some success. The very first piece of marginalia (on 112r) now appears to be:
i.e. NOMEN ARIETIS SOLICET ANGELUS EIUS (EST) “SORON”
(The dots either side of SORON seem to me to indicate some kind of quotation marks, which I have transcribed accordingly. Of course, anyone who has read any Tolkien may well read this out loud and find themselves somewhat bemused. But the similarity to “SAURON” is no doubt just a coincidence.)
Even though I’m not at all sure what “SOLICET” means in this specific instance (and the ‘O’ was misenciphered as ‘N’, and the ‘C’ looks similar to a ‘T’, etc), it seems reasonably clear to me that (as a whole) this line is intended to disclose the secret name of the angel for Aries: “SORON”. Even if this name appears in some other astrological, magical, or necromantic text, it would appear to be extremely rare: this was therefore very probably a genuinely secret thing for the encryptor.
Similarly, we also find on subsequent pages:
113v:
NOMEN ANGELUS TAURA (EST) “TOION”
115v:
NOMEN ANGELUS JEMINORUM (EST) “SAISIACIN” GADLIO[N]I
116v:
NOMEN ANGELUS CANCRI (EST) “BARAM” — (Note that I’m not yet 100% sure of the Y-like “B” in “BARAM”)
117v:
NOMEN ANGELUS LEONIS (EST) “COLIN”
(Which will perhaps come as a surprise to anyone called Colin.)
143r:
JISU (EST) NOMEN NI SATURNI ET EIUS CIRCULA(TE)O (?)NIUM CIRCULORUM
…which I’m sure Latinists will be able to sort out more clearly.
Interestingly, there appears to be some kind of signature on this page. Given that (a) it appears to be in 15th century handwriting, (b) the manuscript with these marginalia was in the Aragonese court in Naples until 1495, and (c) the subject matter is clearly astrology, I went away and had a brief look for 15th century Neapolitan astrologers.
Angelo Catone (~1440-1496) and Lucio Bellanti are good candidates, though both perhaps slightly too late in the 15th century. My own current best guess is that the signature will turn out to be that of the astrologer Bartolomeo Sibilla, though perhaps others better acquainted with the sources will be able to say if there are any extant holographs or known marginalia by Bartolomeo Sibilla that we might compare this 143r signature with.
As to the secret angel names of the other zodiac signs, on 112v the author lists the abovementioned angels and a few more, though with fairly scrappy writing so that it’s quite hard to be sure:
On the right hand side:
IN?TIUS
SORON TOION
GADLION SAISIACIN
BARAM COLIN
MIMIN SUDRAM
TEDUO GORO(?)
UDABUL DOLI?IT
On the left hand side:
DUODECIM
ET SUNT NOMENA ANGELORUM
DUODECIM SIGNO ?UC CURSO
(P)ENTIUM
…which I’m (again) sure clever Latinists far more able than me will be able to resolve satisfactorily.
Anyway: that’s quite enough techy decryption stuff for a single post, so I shall return to the second (mansions of the moon) part of the Paris 7272 ciphertext in a future Cipher Mysteries post…
I’m flat out at the moment, but this reminds me of the lapidaries, gnostic gems, angel calendars and so forth which intrigued the medieval mind.
An article to hand, which can now be downloaded through academia edu
was written a couple of years ago by Katelyn Mesler, ‘ The Medieval Lapidary of Techel/Azareus on Engraved Stones and Its Jewish Appropriations’.
Speaking of the numerous versions of this work, known for short as the [Techel/Azareus] ‘Complex’, she says that ..
“The first is a Hebrew translation that derives from an intermediate Anglo-Norman version. The second Hebrew text contains Castilian and Catalan terms…. The third text, written in Italian in Hebrew characters, is remarkably similar to some of the Latin versions.
That ‘Italian in Hebrew characters’ made me think this might be of interest, but I have no time to go it to it myself.
Considering BARAM for cancer in 116v, and DARAM in the larger list of names, one might be a misspelling? I’m making guesses here, since looking at the cipher signs gives me a bit of a headache trying to seperate them out. I might come back when I’m more focused and see what I see 😛
Solomon: “DARAM” was a typo for “BARAM”, sorry about that. But also note that the “B” in “BARAM” could instead easily be “Z” (“ZARAM”) or “Q” (“Q[U]ARAM”), so I’m hoping it’ll become clear which is correct when I work my way through the rest of the ciphertext. 🙂
Hello Nick,
thank you for posting the list of the twelve zodiac angels, I think it is one of the most interesting contents of these marginalia. It is also the hardest to read, since the origin of these names is unknown and they do not seem to be Latin.
Darren Worley wrote to me that Soron is the name of an astral spirit mentioned in a IX Century Byzantine document (the formula of abjuration of the Athinganoi: “I anathemize those who invoke certain demons, the chief of them being Soron, Sochan and Arche, and with their aid draw the moon to themselves, asking of it any question they wish” – History of the Byzantine Jews: A Microcosmos in the Thousand Year Empire by Elli Kohen, on Google Books).
The other angelic names could also be of a Greek origin, but I cannot tell.
My tentative readings of some of the annotations you discuss:
** 112r
NOMEN ARIETIS SILICET ANGELVS \
EIVS E[st] .SORON.
The name of Aries, that is to say of its angel, is “Soron”.
It is curious that “angelus” (nominative) appears in place of “angeli” (genitive)
** 143v
OISVT EST NONEN [nomen] D[omi]NI SATVRNI ET EIVS CIRCULA [circulorum?] ET O- \
[M]NIVM CIRCVULARVM PLANE[t]ARVM
Oisut (?) is the name of Lord Saturn and of his circles [orbits?] and of all the circles of the planets.
Again, “circula” (nominative) appears in place of “circulorum” (genitive). Also, here “nonen” appears for “nomen”. I wonder if these are encryption errors or deliberate attempts to make things harder to read.
The name of the planetary spirit is dubious, only the three central letters -isu- seem clear to me.
** 112v:
DVODECIM \
ET SVNT NOMINA ANGELORVM \
DVODECVM SIGNORVM CVSRO- \
DAEN?IVM [custodientium] [IPsA?]
twelve \
also are the names of the angels \
of the twelve signs \
guardians [very?]
“twelve are also the very names of the guardian angles of the twelve signs”
(Introducing the list of the twelve zodiacal angels that immediately follows)
Hello Nick,
I thought that the nominative “angelus” in 112r could make sense after all:
“the name of Aries, that is to say its angel, is Soron”
Hi Marco,
I think you’re right – two nominatives in apposition (if I remember the term right).
If ‘silicet’ reflects how the writer naturally pronounced ‘scilicet’, as opposed to being a spelling mistake during enciphering, that might give a clue as to where they came from. Pronouncing ‘sc’ as ‘s’ rather than ‘sh’ would be characteristic of
Latin as spoken in Britain in the 15/16th century, and I think of Northern France/Belgium also. But it wouldn’t fit for Italy or Spain.
Many congratulations on cracking this – fantastic work, and I’m very much looking forward to getting time to look properly at what you’ve achieved!
A very impressive decipherment, and a reminder that “simple” substitutions can be extremely difficult.
Philip: a nice little cipher indeed! I’ll be returning to it in a few days’ time, because there’s more yet to do with it…
What I like about this cipher is that it has one unusual thing in common with the Voynich MS text: it looks almost like writing. Most usually, old ciphers present strings of disconnected characters. Borg.Lat.898 by van Heeck, also recently discussed here, is a case in point.
Rene: from my point of view, both this cipher and Voynichese seem to have been constructed with both cryptography and steganography actively in mind – a very integrated (or, some might say, a very non-disintegrated) attitude towards secret writing.
It has long struck me that what is perhaps most frustrating about Voynichese is that even though – as Tiltman suggested – it seems to have been formed from a number of simpler, older ciphers, we haven’t yet found a single trace of those older ciphers in action. It is as though Voynichese was the culmination of an evolutionary branch of cipher-making that died out with it.
Perhaps if we can work out from where this other cipher came from, we may yet get some idea of the kind of time and place where cryptography and steganography were both in active use: and that in turn might suggest a set of archives to look at for examples of secret writing. Something to think about, anyway. 🙂
Never know what language it will be!
Much respect to Marco for solving this!
Just as a side note: on 143r, the word in the “signature” that looks like it says “vehatton” would fit Bellanti spelled backwards character-wise.
John: it certainly would, well done for spotting this as a possibility. Though – as I said in the post – it would perhaps be most interesting if we could find any writing known to be specifically by the three candidates I mentioned, because that might help us to narrow it down more definitively.
Nick,
Perhaps someone has already mentioned this, but the source for those angelic names seems the same as that for the Glossulae Super Librum imaginum lunae, Oxford Corpus Christi College [MS] 125, ff.109r-110v.
The Liber Imaginum is mentioned in a 13thC text, the Speculum astronomiae.
Commentary and context for these and similar works in
Sophie Page, Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult, Approaches to the Medieval Universe, Penn State Press (2013)
See Appendix 1, sect.7, (p. 143 in Page’s study).
I daresay the same works are in Lynn Thorndike, but I haven’t that handy.
Diane: thanks very much for that, it certainly does offer a likely parallel list of spirit names with a fair few overlaps. I’ll try to get a copy of Page’s book and go through it carefully, it looks like a nice read. 🙂
Darn you, Nick Pelling! Thy copy will surely dock before mine and then the treasure shall be thoine.
*chews moustachios*
Diane: my book budget this year has been disappearing like sand through a sieve, so you may well get your copy first, I wouldn’t bet either way…
Nick, if I wanted to keep it for myself, I’d not have dangled the reference. I look forward to any posts.
Diane: I’m not in a race, if anyone can make sense of any of it then the very best of luck to them. 😉
Nick,
I second that. Glad to be of help.