Early cipher treatment

Cryptologia, Apr 2000 by Kruh, Louis

EARLY CIPHER TREATMENT

Alberti, Leon Battista. A Treatise on Ciphers. Galimberti Tipografi Editori, 26 Via S. Pio V, 10125 Torino ITALY. 1997. 64 pp. Write for price.

In his Foreword, David Kahn states, "This slim and elegant volume reproduces the most important writing in cryptology. The De Cifris - or more precisely, De Componendis Cyfris - by Leon Battista Alberti encompasses three elements that raise it to that primacy: the first description of polyalphabetic substitution, the first Western exposition of cryptanalysis, and the first description of enciphered code."

This edition provides an English translation of Alberti's work plus his paper in the original Latin. In 1994, Galimberti published a magnificent reprinting of Alberti's Della Scrivere in Cifra in the original Latin with an Italian translation by Augusto Buonafalce At that time, Buonafalce knew only of the nine manuscripts cited by Alberti's biographers. Since then four more manuscripts have been discovered and the English translation is based on the 13 manuscripts which makes it as close as possible to Albert's original.

This handsome work also includes Buonafalce's fine article, "The Polyalphabetic Cipher," which discusses Alberti's work and other early authors who wrote about polyalphabetic encryption. They include Trithemius, Silvestri, Bellaso, Porta, Vigenere, Mancini, Meister, and others. The volume also contains a descriptive index of the 13 known Alberti manuscripts and their locations, an etching of Alberti and an accurate working reproduction of his cipher disk.

Similar to his previous volume, Galimberti has published an impressive 8 1/2" x 13 1/2" book printed on high quality parchment-like paper, in a classic typographic style, with a dust wrapper and protective slipcase.