JOHANNES TRITHEMIUS, ABBOT OF SPONHEIM

The page exhibits significant foxing and brown spotting throughout the paper surface, common in older rag-paper manuscripts where metallic impurities in the paper or damp storage conditions cause oxidation.

...you shall write by the denoted [sign] and afterwards vary it through the aforementioned rules.
Mainsiem raebuers ofmanmiuplotreuns iducoursu. This is a scrambled version of the prayer used on the previous page: "Miserere omnipotens Deus..." The author is demonstrating how to break the words apart to hide the message. And this verse is varied by two; but by 3, it works thus: Mefinassme dnrcleuors reau onmitmnu raopbrouutsm. But by 4, thus: M iauipnlsoio et mr reanenbmrs ut edsu oesu uar nsmu, etc. And so by dividing we proceed up to eight parts, and afterwards we proceed in our book through the preceding eight rules to make the letters meaningful to the reader Trithemius suggests adding "nulls" or extra vowels to the scrambled text to make the result look like a different, perhaps magical or exotic, language. by interspersing other vowels. And you will have no other difficulty in reading our book, except that you must examine any conjuration original: "coniurationem." Trithemius uses the term "conjuration" as a cover; the "spells" in this book are actually cryptographic keys. at the beginning, through any of our modes to find our meaning, which will soon be open to your diligence with this key. Wherefore