by DAVID KAHN
859 Burnett: III, xxxiii: “The present editor has deciphered all such letters as have been found.”
859 Bischoff: “bersicht uber die nichtdiplomatischen Geheimschriften des Mittelalters,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichts-forschung,” LXII (1954).
859 Lohmann: “Cifras y claves indianas,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos, XI (1954), 285-380, XIV (1957), 351-359.
859 “The reason”: Peckham, letter, August 15, 1962.
859 Price: The Equatorie of the Planetis, ed. Derek J. Price (Cambridge: University Press, 1955), 182-187.
860 Devos: Les chiffres de Philippe II et du Despacho Universal durant le XVIIe Siècle (Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique, 1950), 418.
860 Gomez del Campillo: “De Cifras,” Boletín de la Real Academía de la Historía, CXXIX (October-December, 1951), 279-307.
860 Monterde: “La carta cifrada de Don Hernán Cortes,” Anales del Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Historía y Etnografía, 4th época, III (1925), 436-443.
860 Fuchs: Robert Fuchs and Gottfried Buschbell, “Die Instruktion Karls V. für den Kardinal von Trent, Cristoph Madruzzo, nach Rom (von 11. June 1546),” Archiv für Urkundenforschung, XIV (1935), 188-210.
860 Biaudet: “La correspondance diplomatique de Don Juan de Zúñiga y Requesens,” Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia, series B, VIII (1912), 31-41 at 35.
860 Brunon: Jean Brunon and Jean Barruol, Les Français en Italie sous Henri II (Marseilles: Collection Raoul et Jean Brunon, 1952), 44-45, 48, 76-78.
860 Rosell Planas: Las claves de Martí y el plan de alzamiento para Cuba, Publicaciones del Archivo Nacional de Cuba, XVI (Havana: Talleres del Archivo Nacional de Cuba, 1948).
860 Rommell: “La clef des chiffres dans la correspondance inédite de Henri IV avec Maurice le Savant,” Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Geschichte, V (1846), 402-404.
860 Bazeries: 201.
860 Man in the Iron Mask: Émile Burgaud et Commandant Bazeries, Le Masque de Fer (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1893), 257-272 for solution, 1-3 for message of July 8; Lieutenant Colonel Léger, “Le masque de fer,” Le Monde Militaire, No. 70 (October 21, 1949), 7, 10, for refutation.
862 Neff: Robert H. Fowler, “Was Stanton Behind Lincoln’s Murder?” Civil War Times, III (August, 1961), 4-23.
863 description and history of Voynich manuscript: William R. Newbold, The Cipher of Roger Bacon, ed. Roland G. Kent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928), 1-51; Thirty-Five Manuscripts, Catalogue 100 (New York: H. P. Kraus, 1962), 42-46.
866 Dee: DNB; John E. Bailey, “Dee and Trithemius’s ‘Steganography,’” N&Q, 5:9:401-402, 422-423.
866 “Dr. Arthur Dee”: Charlotte Fell-Smith, John Dee, at 311-312, quoted Newbold, 40.
866 attempts at solution: John M. Manly, “The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World,” Harper’s Magazine, CXLIII (July, 1921), 186-197 at 190.
867 specialists: correspondence relating to the manuscript, in Kraus’s possession; letters, Yardley to Manly, February 18, 1921, and January 13, 1922, Manly Papers.
867 Newbold: Kent foreword in Newbold, xi-xiv.
867 Newbold cipher: most clearly at Newbold, 106-107.
867 results and excitement: Manly, 186-187; John M. Manly, “Roger Bacon and the Voynich Ms.,” Speculum, VI (July, 1931), 345-391; “Roger Bacon’s Cipher Manuscript,” The American Review of Reviews (July, 1921), 105-106.
868 “In a concave mirror,” “I did not know”: Newbold, 124, 123. 868 cilia, “Professor Newbold’s theory”: Manly, 193, 195.
868 J. Malcolm Bird: “The Roger Bacon Manuscript,” Scientific American Monthly, III (June, 1921), 492-496, at 495 for “Professor Newbold has not.”
868 Carton, Gilson: Manly, 347.
868 American and British: Lynn Thorndike, review in American Historical Review, XXXIV (January, 1929), 317-319; Robert Steele, “Science in Medieval Cipher,” Nature, CXXII (October 13, 1928), 563-566.
869 “is open to objections,” “threaten to falsify”: Manly, 347.
869 “I frequently”: Newbold, 103.
869 different solutions of the same text: Manly, 358-360.
869 “contain assumptions”: Manly, 348.
869 1,000 pages in Catalan: Newbold, xxvi.
869 “of his own intense”: Manly, 390.
870 Feely: Roger Bacon’s Cipher: The Right Key Found (Rochester, N.Y.: privately printed, 1943), at 41. This is the translation for line 28 of the manuscript’s folio 78r (Newbold, plate V).
870 Strong: “Anthony Ascham, the Author of the Voynich Manuscript,” Science, new series, CI (June 15, 1945), 608-609; L. C. Strong and E. L. McCawley, “A Verification of a Hitherto Unknown Prescription of the 16th Century,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XXI (November-December, 1947), 898-904. Criticism from W. F. Friedman in interviews.
870 1944 Friedman attempt: Friedman, letters to Mrs. Voynich’s secretary, Miss Anne M. Nill, May 25, June 29, August 5, 1944; Elizebeth Smith Friedman, “‘The Most Mysterious MS’ Still an Enigma,” The Washington Post (August 5, 1962), E1, E5.
870 Dalgarno and others: Frederick Bodmer, The Loom of Language, ed. Lancelot Hogben (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1944), 448-460; Mario Pei, One Language for the World (New York: Devin-Adair, 1958), 88-90, 143-150; M. Monnerot-Dumaine, Precis d’Interlinguistique (Paris: Librairie Maloine, 1960), 72-81, 11-16.
871 Petersen: interviews, July 3, 1962 (by telephone), December 15, 1963. 871 “the attack has”: Manly, 391.
871 no hoax: Petersen interviews; Friedman, telephone interview, June 19, 1962.
871 Ethel Voynich: “A Best Seller in Russia,” Look, XXII (July 8, 1958), 68-70; “Ethel L. Voynich, Novelist, Was 96,” The New York Times (July 29, 1960).
871 “The moment someone”: H. P. Kraus, interview, June 19, 1962.
872 16th-century work, foundation: E. S. Friedman, “The Most Mysterious MS’ Still an Enigma.”
872 probably an herbal: Petersen.
Chapter 24 THE PATHOLOGY OF CRYPTOLOGY
873 Thomas Usk: The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, VII: Supplement: Chaucerian and Other Pieces, ed. Walter W. Skeat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), xix-xx.
873 cuneiform acrostic: W. G. Lambert, “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, XI (1957), 1-14 at 1, citing Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, XLIII, 34.
873 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, IV; [New York Public Library] Bulletin, XXXVI (July, 1932), 475-486, LVIII (September, 1954), 419-428.
874 Donnelly: DAB; Martin Ridge, Ignatius Donnelly: The Portrait of a Politician (Chicago, III.: University of Chicago Press, 1962), especially ch. 14, “The Great Cryptogram,” 227-244.
874 “I will reread”: Ridge, 227.
874 Atlantis and Ragnorök: Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, 1957), 164-166, 35-37; Ridge, 202.
875 “I have been working”: Ridge, 228.
875 “I think about it”: Ridge, 229.
875 New York World: Ridge, 231. The mathematician was Thomas Davidson.
875 “terrible task,” “infinite sense”: Ridge, 233-234.
875 workings of cipher: Mostly from William F. Friedman and Elizebeth S. Friedman, The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined: An Analysis of Cryptographic Systems Used as Evidence That Some Author Other Than William Shakespeare Wrote the Plays Commonly Attributed to Him (Cambridge: University Press, 1957), ch. 3, “Ignatius Donnelly and The Great Cryptogram,” 27-50; some from Ignatius Donnelly, The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon’s Cipher in the So-Called Shakespeare Plays (Chicago, III.: R. S. Peale & Co., 1888).
876 root-numbers: Donnelly, 583.
876 “Shaks’t spur”: Donnelly, 719.
876 special printer: Ridge, 232.
876 book’s failure: Ridge, 233-237.
876 criticism: Friedman and Friedman, 35-45, 49-50.
878 European tour, “I will put”: Ridge, 237-243.
878 The Ci
pher in the Plays and on the Tombstone: (Minneapolis, Minn.: Verulam Publishing Company, 1899); Ridge, 244.
878 “enigmatology”: Pierre Henrion, Jonathan Swift Confesses, I: Gulliver’s Secret (Versailles: privately printed, 1962), 49. This appears to be a renaming of the “generalised cryptology” which he opposes to modern, scientific, rigid cryptography in Baconiana, No. 160, at 43, 46, 47, and No. 161, at 111.
879 Owen, Arensberg, Booth, Durning-Lawrence, Johnson, Cunningham: Friedman and Friedman, chs. 5, 10, and 9, and pp. 106-107 and 83-85, and plates iv and v.
882 “in our youth”: Francis Bacon, Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, trans. Gilbert Wats (Oxford: Leon Richfield for the University, 1640), 265. This is the first English translation of De Augmentis Scientarum. The cipher section is in Book VI, ch. 1.
882 Of the proficience and advancement of Learning, divine and humane (London: Henrie Tomes, 1605), 60v-61r.
883 “a thing that yet”: Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, 265.
883 “Neither is it”: Ibid., 266. For a cipher that contains many elements of Bacon’s, including the variation of typefaces but not the clever use of an independent covertext, see Blaise de Vigenère, Traicté des Chiffres (Paris: Abel I’Angelier, 1586) 200r, 241r-243r. This was printed after Bacon assertedly invented his but before he published it. Perhaps the idea was current in Paris at the time.
884 tombstone cipher: Friedman and Friedman, ch. 4.
885 biliteral cipher in the plays, Mrs. Gallup: Ibid., chs. 13-18.
885 Gallup: (Detroit, Mich.: Howard Publishing Co.). Second edition 1900, third 1901, Part III, Deciphered Secret Story, 1622 to 1671 (1910).
886 “Queen Elizabeth is”: Gallup, 2nd ed., 166.
886 “unwilling,” “she who bore me”: Gallup, Part III, 11, 13.
887 “But you must have,” “uneasy questioning”: Friedman and Friedman, 210, 211.
887 “I sometimes think”: quoted Friedman and Friedman, 198.
887 “Seeke the keyes”: Gallup, 2nd ed., 168. The maundering quality of many of the Baconian enigmaductions may result from their being, at heart, Markoff chains based on word-sequence probabilities, rather like discourse put together according to frequency tables, as in Jonathan Swift, Voyage to Laputa, ch. iii. See Colin Cherry, On Human Communication (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957), 181-182; George A. Miller, Language and Communication (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 190.
887 inconsistent assignments: Friedman and Friedman, 223-224, plate x.
887 lifted headings: Friedman and Friedman, 243.
888 Hinman: (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
888 “large numbers of variant”: quoted Friedman and Friedman, 228.
888 “have certainly revealed”: Hinman, letter, January 28, 1965.
888 Goudy: Friedman and Friedman, 217-221.
888 “No characteristics”: quoted Friedman and Friedman, 223.
888 Rossetti: E. R. Vincent, Gabriele Rossetti in England, Oxford Studies in Modern Languages and Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), ch. 4, “Critic,” 73-109. Vincent, 109, says he will not attempt “the futile and impossible task of proving or disproving the existence of a medieval sect with a secret code for which no evidence appears to exist apart from works arbitrarily understood according to that code.”
888 Margoliouth: The Colophons of the Iliad & Odyssey (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1925).
889 Henrion: Jonathan Swift Confesses.
889 Hime: “Roger Bacon and Gunpowder” in Roger Bacon Essays, ed. A. G. Little (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), ch. 12, 321-336. For refutations, Lynn Thorndike, “Roger Bacon and Gunpowder,” Science, XLII (1915), 799-800; Robert Steele, “Luru Vopo Vir Can Utriet,” Nature, CXXI (February 11, 1928), 208-209. For another solution from these nonexistent letters, see Nature, CXVIII (September 4, 1926), 352.
889 Bible: Margoliouth in Saturday Review (September, 1924); Raymond Abellio, La Bible: Document Chiffré, in two vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1950). A poignant instance of imagined ciphers in the Bible is the demand of DeWitt T. Kennard, an inmate of Peoria State Hospital, that George Fabyan take up the interest in ciphers described in an article about Fabyan in the American Magazine, XCIX (January, 1925), 36-39, 60, 62, and solve the ciphers in the Bible that prove that Kennard is the Messiah (The New Embodiment: Letters of the Lord God to Colonel George Fabyan [December 24, 1925], Fabyan Collection No. 417, Rare Book Room, The Library of Congress).
889 Chaucer: Ethel Seaton, “The Parlement of Foules and Lionel of Clarence,” Medium Ævum, XXV (1957), 168-174; Katherine T. Emerson, “A Reply,” Ibid., XXVI (1957), 107-111; William F. Friedman and Elizebeth S. Friedman, “Acrostics, Anagrams, and Chaucer,” Philological Quarterly, XXXVIII (January, 1959), 1-20.
889 Aristotle: David S. Margoliouth, The Homer of Aristotle (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1923).
889 Omenitsch: Congressional Record, LXXX (April 22, 1936), 6121-6122; worksheets of Omenitsch apparently sent to Donald D. Millikin, 1936, in my possession.
889 oddballs: Gardner, ch. 15, for Pyramidologists.
890 “ciphers are made”: quoted Friedman and Friedman, 242.
890 “while an Elizabethan”: Baconiana, No. 160, at 3.
890 Ayer: Language, Truth and Logic (1936, reprinted New York: Dover Publications), 95. For errors the Baconians commit, John Hospers, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1950); for what they should be doing, Henry Margenau, The Nature of Physical Reality (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950), chs. 5 and 6.
891 “If one can argue”: Frank W. Wadsworth, The Poacher from Stratford (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1958), 164. Another general study of the problem is H. N. Gibson, The Shakespeare Claimants (London: Methuen, 1962). 891 psychological problem: See Harry Trosman, “Freud and the Controversy over Shakespearean Authorship,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, XIII (July, 1965), 475-498. I am grateful to Dr. Trosman for reading portions of the manuscript and making a number of valuable suggestions. An analysis of the same problem in history in general has been made by Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965).
Chapter 25 ANCESTRAL VOICES
Since the material on which this chapter is based is widely known and easily available, I have not thought it necessary to give notes as detailed as those for the other chapters. I want to thank Dr. Emmett L. Bennett, Jr., for reading the Linear B section of this chapter, and Dr. I. J. Gelb for reading the other sections. Both offered many valuable suggestions and corrections, most of which I have adopted, and for which I am deeply grateful.
895 general problem of decipherment: Pentti Aalto, “Notes on Methods of Decipherment of Unknown Writings and Languages,” Studia Orientalia, XI, No. 4 (1945), 1-26; P. E. Cleator, Lost Languages (New York: John Day, 1961), 23-24; Henry Sweet, The Practical Study of Languages (1898, reprinted London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 254-261.
896 Dhorme: Who’s Who in France, 1963-1964; telephone interview with I. J. Gelb, November 17, 1964; Ernst Doblhofer, Voices in Stone, trans. Merven Savill (New York: Viking Press, 1961), 213, and Leo Deuel, Testaments of Time: The Search for Lost Manuscripts and Records (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 236, for cryptanalytic experience.
897 “I did not hesitate”: E. Dhorme, “Déchiffrement des inscriptions pseudo-hiéroglyphiques de Byblos,” Syria, XXV (1946-1948), 1-35 at 2-3.
898 “rendered a hitherto”: Ibid., 4; David Diringer, The Alphabet (New York: Philosophical Library, 2nd ed., n.d.), 161-165; I. J. Gelb, A Study of Writing, rev. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 157-158.
898 Ugaritic: Charles Virolleaud, “Les inscriptions cunéiformes de Ras Shamra,” Syria, X (1929), 304-310, plus 20 plates; Hans Bauer, “ Die Entzifferung des Keilschriftalphabets von Ras Schamra,” Forschungen und Fortschritte, VI (August 20, 1930), 306-307.
899 “This consonant”: Dhorme, “Un Nouvel Alphabet Sémitique,” Revue Bibliqu
e, XXXIX (October, 1930), 571-577.
899 Virolleaud solution: “Le déchiffrement des tablettes alphabétiques de Ras Shamra,” Syria, XII (1931), 15-23.
899 “perfect scientific loyalty”: Dhorme, “Première Traduction des Textes Phéniciens de Ras Shamra,” Revue Biblique, XL (January, 1931), 32-56 at 32.
900 “the most important”: Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1949), 1.
900 Biblical parallels: J. W. Jack, The Ras Shamra Tablets: Their Bearing on the Old Testament, Old Testament Studies, No. 1, Society for Old Testament Study (Edinburgh: T. T. Clark, 1935), 48-49; Robert de Langhe, Les Textes de Ras Shamra-Ugarit et leurs Rapports avec le Milieu Biblique de l’Ancien Testament, Universitas Catholic Loaveniensis, Dissertationes…, Series II, Vol. 35 (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1945), I, 370-375.
900 linguistic reconstructions: Holger Pedersen, The Discovery of Language: Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century, trans. John Webster Spargo (1931, reprinted Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1962), for Gothic, Persian, Slavic, Tokharian. E. H. Sturtevant, Linguistic Change (1917, republished Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), for principles of internal change.
901 hieroglyphs: Erik Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1961), is my source for nearly all the information on the Greek impressions of hieroglyphics, their decline, their impact on European thought, the false solutions, and Young’s and Champollion’s correct solutions. This is a fascinating book. See also Madeleine V.-David, Le débat sur les écritures et l’hiéroglyphe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles et l’application de la notion de déchiffrement aux écritures mortes, Bibliothèque générale de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études, VIe Section (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1965).
904 Hermes Trismegistus: Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964).
904 Pharaoh Apries misinterpretation: Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed., rev. (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), 12.
904 Rosetta Stone: E. A. Wallis Budge, The Rosetta Stone (London: British Museum, 1922; revised 1950).
