Using AI to do research - Specifically online searching

[Mark Knowles]

Have you read this paper, Mark?

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(It doesn't seem to like to link from Voynich Ninja.)

Yes, I seen this paper before. I was in contact with Judit Somogyi a fews years ago. However, I haven't touched base with her in some time and she may have dug up something new. I think she has tended to rely on well-known sources rather than actually locating new ciphers, but I could very easily be wrong.

However, don't be disheartened as this process has turned up one cipher that I was not aware of, namely in:

"The Professionalization of Cryptology in Sixteenth Century Venice by Ioanna Iordanou"

"Andrea Barbarigo, for instance, a renowned Venetian
merchant, already by the 1430s was using his own cipher for his confidential communication with his business agent in the Levant."

"The cipher is in ASV, Archivio Grimani-Barbarigo, busta (hereafter b.) 4, Reg. 1, c.158 r."

I probably missed this one, because it didn't come up in communication with Paolo Bonavoglia and because this article is chiefly about 16th century cryptography.

Now, it probably isn't a very sophisticated cipher as it is commercial not diplomatic, but who knows it may have some interesting features. I should get in touch with Ioanna Iordanou. She lives in Oxford, which is my home town, although we have never met.

One thing I am curious about is that Brunelleschi was supposed to have written his ideas in cipher and he was active in the early 15th century, so I ought to track down his ciphers for the sake of completeness. (I am not suggesting that Brunelleschi might have written the Voynich.)