Few books have fooled their readers for as long as the Steganographia of Johannes Trithemius. For almost five centuries it was regarded as a treatise on angelic magic, with invocations of spirits charged with carrying messages over distance. Only at the end of the twentieth century was it proven that at least part of the book was something quite different: a cryptography manual disguised as a grimoire.
The author
Johannes Trithemius was a German Benedictine monk, abbot of the monastery of Sponheim and later of the one in Würzburg. He was a renowned scholar, author of historical and bibliographical works, and the library he assembled at Sponheim was among the most admired of his time. He was also in contact with figures such as Cornelius Agrippa, who dedicated the first draft of the De occulta philosophia to him.
An imprudent letter
The story of the Steganographia begins with a letter. Around 1499 Trithemius wrote to the Carmelite Arnold Bostius describing the work he was engaged on and the wonders it would make possible, including communicating at a distance without words or visible signs. Bostius died before the letter reached him, and the text fell into the hands of other readers, who spread its contents.
Shortly afterwards the French philosopher Charles de Bovelles, who had visited Sponheim and seen the manuscript, publicly accused Trithemius of dealing in demonic magic. From then on the abbot had to defend himself for the rest of his life against a reputation as a necromancer.
Structure of the work
The book, which Trithemius never finished, is divided into three parts:
| Book | Appearance | Real nature |
|---|---|---|
| First | invocations of spirits to send messages | cipher systems with cover texts |
| Second | further spirits and operations | ciphers of the same kind |
| Third | planetary spirits, number tables and hours | a numerical cipher, decoded in the twentieth century |
The first two books
In the first two books every "spirit" has a name and an invocation formula. As early as the modern period some attentive readers realised that these formulas concealed messages: by reading only certain letters according to precise rules, the seemingly magical text reveals entirely different content. This is the principle of steganography, the art of hiding one message inside another.
The third book
The third book was more puzzling. It contained tables of numbers associated with planets and angels, and it truly looked like a treatise on astral magic. In the 1990s two scholars working independently, Thomas Ernst and Jim Reeds, managed to decode the tables and showed that they too contained enciphered messages. The hidden messages turned out to be entirely ordinary sentences, confirming that the book was a serious game of concealment.
Printing and condemnation
For a century the Steganographia circulated only in manuscript, feeding curiosity and suspicion. The first printed edition appeared in Frankfurt in 1606, many years after the author's death. Shortly afterwards the book was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, where it long remained.
Its reputation as a magical book did not fade even when some commentators demonstrated its cryptographic nature. On the contrary, parts of the work were taken up by later grimoires, such as the Theurgia-Goetia of the Lemegeton, which used its spirits as though they were real entities.
The Polygraphia
Trithemius also wrote the Polygraphia, published in 1518 after his death, which is regarded as one of the first printed treatises on cryptography. It contains a table that allows a text to be enciphered by shifting the alphabet line by line, an idea of great importance in the history of secret writing.
The appeal of a false bottom
The Steganographia offers a valuable lesson to anyone studying esoteric texts. A book can have an evident meaning and a hidden one, and the second may be completely different from the first. Trithemius played deliberately with this ambiguity, and for centuries his readers were at once its victims and its accomplices.
One question remains open: did Trithemius truly mean only to hide messages, or did he also believe in a spiritual dimension of communication? Scholars are divided, and the most honest answer is that the text allows both readings.
In short
- The Steganographia was written by Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, around 1499-1500.
- A letter to Arnold Bostius and Charles de Bovelles' accusation made it a suspect book.
- The first two books hide ciphers behind seemingly magical invocations.
- The third book was decoded in the 1990s by Thomas Ernst and Jim Reeds.
- It was printed in Frankfurt in 1606 and then placed on the Index of Prohibited Books.
