Why did Giovanni Fontana write his book in cipher?

[MichelleL11]

Opinions on Fontana's reasons for enciphering his works could be interesting.

Hi, Mark:

I always thought that John Friedman's discussion of medieval scientific ciphers was well founded in his paper talking about John de Foxton's use of cipher in his Liber Cosmographae. 

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He says, after a paragraph summarizing aspects about the cipher, about Fontana's motivations:

   

Although I do get the logic, I am not convinced the VM and Fontana's work share similar motivations.  Certainly the outcome has been quite different for the two manuscripts -- one got Fontana a job (if I remember correctly), the other, it still can't be read.