PREFACE

...to the perverse and impious, and provide a service for wicked deeds. For just as a good man and a lover of honesty may—for private or common good—safely, secretly, and without any suspicion from any mortal, notify another person who knows this art of the secret of his will whenever and as often as he wishes, perfectly, copiously, and in its entirety through letters that are open to everyone, whether plain or folded (so that no one, however learned or curious, can suspect anything of the sender’s secret; nor, even if they do suspect, can they detect it), and can intimate and express it at any time and at any distance; so too could any perverse, deceitful, or malicious person. Even one previously entirely ignorant of the Latin language, as soon as he has acquired this art (which, with me teaching, he could master in two days at most), could thereafter write letters in fitting Latin composition, in any narrative style, open, beautiful, and sufficiently ornate, to me or to another skilled in this art. In these, he would shroud the secret of his will—accessible to me alone—in such great mysteries by Cabalistic original: "Cabalistica" — while today associated with Jewish mysticism, the author here refers to a method of encoding information through letter substitutions or symbolic "veiling." power that it could be penetrated by no one at all, no matter how studious or learned, without the spirits of this art of which I am about to speak.

Thereafter, the learned and unlearned, man and woman, boy and old man, good and evil, modest and lustful, could write Latin, Greek, or "barbarian" In this context, "barbarian" refers to any language other than Latin or Greek, such as German or French. letters through all the climates of the world, free from all suspicion. Through these letters, they would show one thing openly to those who do not know the art, and another thing in secret to those who do. Not even the safe trust between married couples, contracted by sacrament, would remain if this science were made public to the reprobate: for a wife, though previously ignorant of the Latin language, could become sufficiently learned through modest, honest, and most holy words in any language or idiom to understand the evil and immodest mind and intention of an adulterous lover or fornicator—even with her husband delivering the letters and praising them as excellent. She could then send back her own desire in the same way, as broadly and copiously as she wished, most securely in the same or other letters with a beautiful and quite ornate sequence.

Indeed, although this science is in itself excellent and sufficiently useful to the Republic original: "Reipubl." — the "Respublica" or the State; the general public order., nevertheless, if it should come to the knowledge of the wicked (which God forbid), the order of the entire Republic could, in the course of time, be greatly disturbed; public faith could be endangered, along with all letters, legal instruments, records, and finally [the affairs] of men...