Codice Urbinate 998

For historians of cryptography, excellent primary sources for ciphers are Northern Italian cipher ledgers (dating from 1379-1500). According to Garrett Mattingly ("Renaissance Diplomacy"), these co-evolved with inter-state diplomacy in Italy, and became especially necessary following the Peace of Lodi in 1453.

These ledgers were typically compiled sequentially (that is, one dated cipher at a time) by scribes in a Chancellery, and stored under close guard. By far the most magnificent of these sources is the Milanese Tranchedino ledger (MS Vienna 2398, which holds ciphers from 1450-1500): but this is not the only one still extant.

In 1379, Gabriele de Lavinde of Parma (a secretary to anti-Pope Clement VII) compiled the first known cipher ledger. Now held in the Vatican archives, this contains a set of simple ciphers for 24 correspondents. (BTW, does anyone know of any facsimile edition of this?)

Between these two landmarks stands another, little known cipher ledger - Codice Urbinate 998. This ledger was compiled in the Urbino Chancery between 1440 and 1469, and holds 72 ciphers (with their nomenclators). Voynich researchers know about it because it was mentioned by Mary D'Imperio in her excellent "Elegant Enigma" book. She (in turn) had found it mentioned by Luigi Sacco... and that's where we pick up the story. :-)

Many Latin Manuscripts from Urbino were grabbed by the Vatican in 1568: and though many were later returned to Urbino (most of which are now held in 'buste' in the BNCF), 1500 manuscripts remained (and still remain) in the Vatican Secret Archive. Its proper reference is:-
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 you have an ASV readers pass, the Legazione di Urbino collection is Indici 134, 1023 in the Schedario Garampi.

The only pages of Codice Urbinate 998 I currently know of were included by Luigi Sacco (references below).
Here are some scans of these pages (made by David Bianchi)...
  1. Codice Urbinate 998: Bolletino #26 (Dec 1947), page 14 (Figure 2)
  2. Codice Urbinate 998: Sacco (1947), page 280 (Figure 18)
  3. Codice Urbinate 998: Sacco (1947), page 281 (Figure 19)
If you'd like to check these yourself, here are the references for the BNCF (I don't know of any other library with them):-

Luigi Sacco (1947) "Manuale di crittografia". the reference to the (Italian-language 3rd Edition) copy in the BNCF is:-
Luigi Sacco also published an article in 1947, which you can find in the BNCF with this reference:- Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: for more on MS Vienna 2398, look at Lydia Cerioni "La diplomazia sforzesca nella seconds meta del Quattrocento e i suoi cifrari segreti" (1970), which is in two volumes, the second volume comprising not only MS Vienna 2398, but also "di cifrari conservati presso l'Archivio di Stato di Milano (tavv. I - LXXII)" (another cipher ledger entirely).