Criptography. Della Porta (Giovanni Battista)

De Furtius Literarum Notis vulgo de ziferis libri quinque, 5 parts in one, first edition of the fifth part, last pages misnumbered, large woodcut on title page, large/full-page diagrams, woodcut dials with probably later volvelles on M3r, Nv, & N3r, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials, uncut, light age yellowing, occasional spotting and staining, contemporary limp vellum, handwritten title on spine, soiled, 4to, Giovanni Battista Sottile, Naples, 1602.

***Della Porta's celebrated work on secret codes and cryptography. It described the first known digraphic substitution cipher, a method of encoding by which units of plain text are replaced with cipher text; the receiver then deciphers the text by performing the inverse substitution. First published in 1563 in four books, the present edition is enlarged and reorganized into five parts, dealing with ancient ciphers, modern ciphers, cryptanalysis, and a list of linguistic peculiarities that encompass the cryptologic knowledge of the time.The book includes a set of movable rococo cipher disks whose volvelle, originally printed on a separate leaf, in this copy have been cut and mounted at the proper place, as intended.