RE: W-Hypothesis - maybe the P-hypothesis?

["ddhopper" <ddhopper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is also a 1591 reprint of Porta’s “de Furtivs Literarum Notis Vulgo”,
by John Wolfe of London, with the dedicaton "Illustri et Excelso viro
Henrico Perceio Comiti Northumbriae, &c. Domini meo Colendissimo.".  It was
discovered that this printer had also published an “illegal” (unregistered)
copy of this same book, bearing the date 1563, and including the original
dedication and titles as "De Furtivis Literatum Notis Vulgo. De Ziferis."
loan Baptista Porta Neapolitano Authore. Cum Privilegio Neapoli, Apud Ioa
Mariam Scotum.”  In this edition the original list of 14 errors had been
corrected, but a new list was added of 86 errors, 70 of which were from the
original publication of 1563.  Nowhere in this edition is it stated that
this book is a reprint, and it is not known why Wolfe published the book
without first entering it into the Stationer’s Register.

There exists in the Library of Congress Catalog a book entitled
“On secret notations for letters commonly called ciphers / by John Baptista
Porta ; [translated by Etta Shield Preston].”  LC Control Number – 96133722,
which may be an English translation of Porta.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Reeds [mailto:reeds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2001 7:50 PM
To: Nick Pelling; voynich@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: W-Hypothesis - maybe the P-hypothesis?


On Oct 22,  0:45, Nick Pelling wrote:

> Subject: Re: W-Hypothesis - maybe the P-hypothesis?
> Hi Bernd,
>
> >I would like to announce the birth of yet another Voynich MS hypothesis:
> >the W-hypothesis (Voynich-Vigenere = V V = W) :-)
>
> According to...
>          http://raphael.math.uic.edu/~jeremy/crypt/contrib/deepak.html
> .....when Vigenere moved to work in Rome...
>
>          People were talking about a book by a doctor and mathmaticain
>          named J.B. Porter. His book and contianed the most accurate
>          ...
> The reference is to Fletcher Pratt's 1939 book "Secret and Urgent", Blue
> Ribbon Books, New York. Has anyone read this book, or got any further
> references on JB Porter?

I have read Pratt's book. JB Porter is certainly J. B. Porta,
Ioan. Baptista Porta, Giovanni Baptista Porta, della Porta, etc.
His book, De furtivis literarum notis, was published in 1563 in
Naples, and again, under the title De occultis literarum notis in
1590 and 1603. See Kahn for a discussion of Porta's place in the
history of cryptography and Galland for a discussion of the various
(many) editions. I don't know of an English translation, but one
might think of Wilkin's Mercury of the Secret and Swift Messenger
(1680 or so, London) as a kind of near-contemporary rephrasing of
Porta's book.

There was a facsimile reprint edition of the 1593 Montbeliard
edition privately printed in 1996, handed out as a party favor
at the 1996 Eurocrypt conference in Zaragoza

--
Jim Reeds, AT&T Labs - Research
Shannon Laboratory, Room C229, Building 103
180 Park Avenue, Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971, USA

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