A decorative woodcut headpiece features symmetrical foliate scrolls—curving leaf designs—centering on a grotesque mask, a common ornamental motif in Renaissance printing used to mark the start of a major section.

A General Triple Key

ON THE STEGANO-

GRAPHIC Steganography: From the Greek 'steganos' (hidden) and 'graphia' (writing); Trithemius used this term to describe his systems of secret communication. BOOKS OF JOHAN-

NES TRITHEMIUS, ABBOT

OF SPONHEIM,

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The general and primary keys of our book are three, upon which the variation of all the remaining ones depends. It consists in the permutation of vowels with consonants, as you will see in the following examples.

{ a b } { a h } { a p }

{ e c } { e k } { e q }

1 { i d } 2 { i l } 3 { i r }

{ o f } { o m } { o s }

{ u g } { u n } { u t }

This table shows three distinct substitution alphabets. In Key 1, the vowel 'a' is replaced by 'b'; in Key 2, 'a' becomes 'h'; and in Key 3, 'a' becomes 'p'. These serve as the "mother" rules for more complex ciphers later in the work.

This method of writing must surely be understood in this way: that whenever in your secret meaning a vowel 'a' occurs to be written, you should place the consonant 'b' original: "ponas," which serves as the catchword for the next page. instead of 'a',