The Venetian Ciphers of Agostino Amadi

The complete manuscript contains all volumes 1-10 with all ciphers and solutions. Agostino Amadi created this remarkable work at the end of the 16th century, and its authentic material was hidden for more than four hundred years and never published before.

A short description of the volumes:

Vol.1 with over hundred cipher examples by using rotating wheels and other methods such as pigpen, positional shifts, columnar, transposition, substitution, grilles, babuini tables, music cipher, Basingstoke and Egyptian symbols.

Vol.2 shows ciphers and decipherment techniques using superfluous symbols, poly-alphabetical methods and babuini tables. Vol.3 discusses poly-steganography using geometric forms and psalms, cipher wheels, and many ancient scripts, such as Hebrew, Chaldean, Chaldee, Phoenician, Babylonian, Gerogliphices, Samaritan, Cofite, Diabolic, Vandals, Schiavone, Illiriche, Aetiopice, etc. Several other ways of secret communication are discussed such as using a clock, crown, music, Neapolitan cord, knots, etc. Vol.4 is titled Apo-cryptography and contains the most sophisticated ciphers using poly-alphabetical tables and includes ciphers with keywords that Amadi invented himself.

Vol.5: is about chemicals and ingredients for hiding letters, repairing paper and how to tamper with seals.

Vol.7-10 must be used as working material for cipher students, and it contains 101 ciphers, with hints for decipherment and the final solutions.