VMs: Codex Urbinate Latino 998...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Listmember David Bianchi very kindly went in to the BNCF (in Florence) 
today & had a look at Luigi Sacco's "Manuale di crittografia" for me. He 
found out that in the (Italian) 1936 (2nd) edition, there's no mention of 
the Urbino ciphers mentioned by Mary D'Imperio, but in the (Italian) 1947 
(3rd) edition, some of them do appear on pages 280-281 - and that (David 
felt) they strongly resembled the Tranchedino cipher codes.

Perhaps most importantly, he notes:-

	Anyway, the only description that Sacco gives of these two pages is: "these
	two figures 18 and 19 (refer to the page 280 and 281) showed two of the 70
	cipher part of a Vatican code (URBINATE 998) and used between 1440 and
	1469". Also at page 21, Sacco refers to this two figures on page 280 and
	281, to be part of "Cifra Urbinate"....

I'm quite sure that this means that this cipher ledger is one of the 1500 
Urbino Latin manuscripts retained in the Vatican Secret Library to the 
present day. Its name would therefore be:-

	"Codex Urbinate Latino 998, Segr. Stato, Legaz. Urbino, ASV"

ie, "Latin manuscript #998 in the Legazione di Urbino collection of 
documents, which is housed in the Segretaria di Stato collections, part of 
the Archivio Segreto Vaticano". If anyone here has an ASV readers pass (not 
easy to get!), the Legazione di Urbino collection is Indici 134, 1023 in 
the Schedario Garampi.

Interestingly (I never knew this), one of the terms and conditions of 
getting access to the ASV is that you must send a copy (or photocopy) of 
every publication which refers to the ASV, so that the triennial Vatican 
Secret Archives Bibliography can be kept up to date. This *should* mean 
that the ASV archivists might well be able to list documents referring to 
any particular manuscript.

Does the BNCF (or the British Library, for that matter) have a copy of the 
latest triennial Vatican Secret Archives Bibliography? That might help us 
find a facsimile of Cod Urbinate Lat 998 elsewhere... fascinating!

Thanks David! :-))))

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: ASV-related headline of the year - 
http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2002/11/01.html


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