Vigenere, Blaise de
Vigenere, Blaise de (1523-1596).
Traicté des chiffres, ou Secretes manieres d’escrire. Paris: Abel l’Angelier, 1587.
4°. 1 nn.Bl., 343 Bl., 1 nn.Bl. Title in red and black with woodcut device, letterpress tables and some text leaves also printed in red and black, engraved motto on title verso, woodcut illustrations including 2 double-page woodcut alphabets, and 6 plates (3 double page plates, 1 folded plate and 2 plates on 1 page). Late 17th-century flexible vellum, manuscript title on spine (a little bit stained). old name on title. paper somewhat browed, in good condition.
EUR 22000,-
First edition, second issue. The Vigenere Cypher was regarded as inbreakable for over 300 years, until Charles Barbbage and Fredrich Kasiski independently developed a method of multiple tests to carry out successful cryptanalysis.
In 1586 the French diplomat and cryptographer Blaise de Vigenère published in Paris his Traicté des chiffres ou secrètes manières d'escrires. Vigenère's book described a text autokey cipher that became known as the Vigenère cipher after being misattributed to Vigenère in the 19th century: the actual inventor was Giovan Battista Bellaso (in 1563). 'Vigenère became acquainted with the writings of Alberti, Trithemius, and Porta when, at the age of twenty-six, he was sent to Rome on a two year diplomatic mission. To start with, his interest in cryptography was purely practical and was linked to his diplomatic work. Then, at the age of thirty-nine, Vigenère decided that he had accumulated enough money for him to be able to abandon his career and concentrate on a life of study. It was only then that he examined in detail the ideas of Alberti, Trithemius, and Porta, weaving them into a coherent and powerful new cipher … The cipher is known as the Vigenère cipher in honour of the man who developed it into its final form. The strength of the Vigenère cipher lies in its using not one, but 26 distinct cipher alphabets to encode a message… To unscramble the message, the intended receiver needs to know which row of the Vigenère square has been used to encipher each letter, so there must be an agreed system of switching between rows. This is achieved by using a keyword… Vigenère’s work culminated in his Traicté des Chiffres, published in 1586. Ironically, this was the same year that Thomas Phelippes was breaking the cipher of Mary Queen of Scots. If only Mary’s secretary had read this treatise, he would have known about the Vigenère cipher, Mary’s messages to Babington would have baffled Phelippes, and her life might have been spared' (Singh, The Code Book. The Secret History of Codes and Codebreaking, 46-51). Vigenère's work is also one of the first European printed books to deal with Chinese and Japanese writing, though strangely the leaf devoted to these remains blank in all the copies of this edition we have inspected
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Galland, An Historical and Analytical Bibliography of the Literature of Cryptography, 193; Adams V-743; Jean Balsamo et Michel Simonin, Abel L’Angelier & Françoise de Louvain…; Robert Birley, 'Press-marks of the de Thou library', in The Book Collector, 1956, n° 2, p. 173; 'Blaise de Vigenère, poète et mythographe au temps de Henri III', Cahiers V.L. Saulnier n° 11, Presses de l’École Nationale Supérieure, 1994; Caillet, Manuel bibliographique des sciences, III, n° 11159; Antoine Coron, 'Note sur les cotes dites de la bibliothèque de Thou', in Bulletin du bibliophile, 1982, III, pp. 339-357 (for the provenance); Mortimer, Harvard French 543; J.-F. Maillard, 'Aspects de l’encyclopédisme au XVIe siècle dans le Traicté des chiffres annoté par Blaise de Vigenère', in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 1982, tome XLIV, 2, pp. 235-268; Denyse Métral, Blaise de Vigenère…, Paris, 1939, p. 57 ff.; Trésors de l’écrit 10 ans d’enrichissement du patrimoine écrit, RMN, 1991, p. 58.
Sachgebiete: Mathematik, Naturwissenschaften
26.08.2026 - 16:15
22000,- EUR
Antiquariat Kainbacher
