Lope de Soria to Charles V, Genoa, 1523

Summary. DECODE lists eleven ciphered letters of Lope de Soria to Charles V, 1523–24, as not deciphered. They are five despatches from Genoa, June to 13 August 1523, most in two or three copies; one is to the chancellor Gattinara. Bergenroth calendared only the letter of 13 August, from its clear parts. The letters use two ciphers. Soria switched in late July: the letter of July has its body in the first and its post data in the second. The key of the later cipher (key B) was rebuilt by aligning a Soria letter of December 1523 (DECODE R9844) with the court’s decipherment filed beside it. The earlier cipher (key A) had no key and no crib. About a thousand signs were transcribed, and its key was recovered from the ciphertext alone: a simulated-annealing substitution solver scored on Castilian state papers of 1520–21 found the alphabet from random starts. The three copies of the June letter then confirmed the homophones. The letters report the league with Venice being closed, the French king’s expected descent on Italy, a proposal to open war on the Venetians in the Bergamasco and Bresciano, Siena’s government, Beaurain’s mission to Bourbon, money for the Swiss, and Andrea Doria offering his galleys to the Emperor. Extent: partial. The June and July letters are deciphered nearly throughout. The key-B passages are deciphered in their main content, with some code groups open, among them rip, pur, qed and mul in key A and a dozen groups in key B.

01The documents

DECODE	Salazar A-28	Letter	Cipher
R9488, R9489, R9490	ff. 248–253	Genoa, June 1523, to the Emperor (three copies)	A
R9491	ff. 440–442	Genoa, 20 July 1523, to Gattinara	B
R9492, R9493	ff. 443–455	Genoa, July 1523, to the Emperor (two copies)	A, closing in B
R9494, R9495, R9496	ff. 478–483	Genoa, 26 July 1523 (three copies)	B
R9497, R9498	ff. 577–584	Genoa, 13 August 1523 (two copies)	B

DECODE dates R9494 and R9498 to 1524, but both letters are dated 1523 in their own text. No key for either cipher survives among the keys DECODE has from the same collection (BRAH 9/15, R9815–R9832), which were checked one by one. A decrypted letter of another envoy in the same volume, Alonso Sánchez (R9768), uses a different cipher.

02The two keys

Key B (from late July 1523) is a homophonic alphabet of Latin-looking letters and signs, with two to four signs for the commoner letters, and a large code of three-letter lower-case groups: sub que, zog de, yed en, xab Francia, soc rey, zic principe, pic tab su Magestad, pup tab V. Magestad. The same cipher is in DECODE R9844 (BRAH 9/30 ff. 34–37), Soria to Gattinara, 30 December 1523. Its decipherment is on ff. 36r–36v, and aligning the two gave the first thirty groups and most of the letters. The Genoa letters then added the rest.

Key A (June–July 1523) has about twenty-five graphic signs (ʒ, crossed ʒ, ⊖, α, ε, φ, π, ꜑, the tt ligature, the figures 2 3 7 9) and a handful of lower-case code words. The writer kept the word divisions. Its values:

plain	signs	plain	signs
a	9, ꜑	n	c
o	α, ꝓ (alone = que)	s	ε, π
e	ʒ, crossed ʒ	t	ꜩ
d	c+ꜩ ligature	l	2
u/v	3	i (b)	7
c	⊖	g (a)	꜑ with double bar
r	small o, L, Y	m	∂
p	б	y	φ
f	♀, long-stemmed hook	x	m-sign

Code words: cap que, lod de, leh en, luc duque, lih Milan, cip Venecia, mos infanteria, lim mil, sig lod saq Rey de Francia, rap Italia. The copies of the June letter spell out uenecia, infanteria and mil where another copy uses the code word, and that fixes three of them.

03How key A was recovered

The key-A block of the July letter (f. 444r–445v, 32 lines) was transcribed into ASCII names for the signs, with the code words set apart. The counts pointed to a near-monoalphabetic cipher. There were few signs; one sign stood alone ten times, which had to be y; and one pair, c before the tt ligature, never separated, so it was a single sign. A simulated-annealing search over sign-to-letter maps was scored with a character 4-gram model of Danvila’s edition of Castilian state papers of 1520–21. It returned la liga general, cinco mil infantes, exercito and con la esperança from random starts in a few seconds. The remaining values, the homophones for a, o and e, and the code words were then fixed by hand. They were checked against the two other copies of the June letter and the duplicate of the July letter, which use different homophones in the same places. The work took one session; the model was given the images and nothing else for this cipher.

04June 1523 (R9488–R9490, key A)

… escriven de Milan como tenian nueva que era arrivado en Venecia un secretario del duque de Milan, el qual avia traido el mandado del Infante para concluir la liga con los venecianos, y que por esto el duque de Milan avia prometido al dicho Infante diez y ocho mil ducados, y que con esto tenian por cierto que se concluiria la dicha liga, y por esto se partia con diligencia el protonotario Caracciolo para ir a Venecia. Y ansi mismo escriven de Milan como aviendose [comen]çado de amotinar la infanteria … les avian enviado una paga … an escrito el duque de Milan y el señor Prospero al duque [de Genova] que quiera esforçarse de ayudar con alguna suma de dineros, y el respondio que no puede dar dineros, pero que tomara quinientos infantes de los del exercito para que esten aqui y los pagara por un mes … de manera que nadie atiende sino a su propio interese.

The league of Venice with the Emperor was signed on 29 July and published on 15 August 1523. Here it is still being bought, with Milanese money on the Archduke Ferdinand’s mandate.

05July 1523 (R9492–R9493, key A)

[…] de Leon escriven a los veinte y tres del mes pasado como lo esperavan, que vendria muy presto el Rey de Francia para pasar en Italia; pero hasta agora no se juntava gente de guerra para que puedan pasar tan presto con exercito. Podria ser que pensasen de pasar con solo la gente d’armas, con esperança que calaran los [qed], y con la esperança de los venecianos, y pensando valerse de los cinco mil infantes que tiene en Provença … Y creo que los dichos [rip] usaran con [pur] los tratos que uso Otaviano Campofregoso quando se fizo la liga general y pasava este Rey de Francia en Italia, que una vez nos deçia que querria entrar en la liga y otras veçes dava palabras por dilatar, fasta que paso el dicho Rey, y a la ora el se declaro nuestro enemigo … fuera bueno començarles luego la guerra. Desto se seguirian dos buenos efetos: lo uno, que se desgravaria el estado de Milan del aposiento del exercito y estaria mejor alojado en el Bergamasco y Bresano; y lo otro, que luego seria tomado Bergamo, de donde podrian sacar dineros para alguna paga a la infanteria. Y no seria milagro que se tomase presto Bresa o Verona.

The [rip] can only be the Venetians or their government, still undecided a fortnight before they joined the league. Soria recalls how Ottaviano Fregoso, Doge of Genoa in 1515, strung the league along and then declared for France once Francis I had crossed the Alps. The closing and the post data of this letter are in key B. They report that Monsieur de Beaurain has arrived; Adrien de Croÿ, sieur de Beaurain, was the Emperor’s envoy to the Duke of Bourbon that summer.

0620 July 1523, to Gattinara (R9491, key B)

A long paragraph on Siena. The Sienese “comunidades” might be freed from their “tiranos” and governed as a republic. Soria argues that things voted by many are hard to carry through where opinions are divided, and that the Emperor would be better served by one man governing “de mano de su Magestad”. Y al cabo creo que avra de venir a esto, porque los seneses, de la condicion que son, que cada qual querra ser señor, y los otros no piensan sino solo en su propio interese. The first seven lines keep several open groups. A short passage names Beaurain again, at Turin.

0726 July 1523 (R9494–R9496, key B)

Beaurain carries this letter. Three days earlier a Piedmontese courier left by land for the Abbot of Nájera. Soria asks that the Emperor provide twenty-eight thousand escudos to a doctor at Constance to pay certain Swiss who have agreed to descend on France, and twelve thousand to a treasurer. The names of the doctor and the treasurer are not deciphered.

0813 August 1523 (R9497–R9498, key B)

Andrea Doria y el principe de Salerno estan muy descontentos del rey, porque les avia quitado la enpresa de esta ciudad y la avia dado al bastardo de Saboya; y a me [hablado] uno que se dize Jeronimo Doria, que es uno de los principales de esta ciudad, de parte del dicho Andrea Doria, y dizen que si V. Mag. [quiere] aceptar en su servicio al dicho Andrea Doria con sus quatro galeras, que el lo servira de muy buena voluntad …

Andrea Doria and the Prince of Salerno are discontented with the King of France. He had taken the enterprise of Genoa from them and given it to the Bastard of Savoy. Jeronimo Doria, one of the leading men of the city, spoke to Soria on Andrea Doria’s behalf: if the Emperor would take him into his service with his four galleys, he would serve “de muy buena voluntad”; the same was offered for the Prince of Salerno. The passage was collated with the duplicate R9498, which spells in code some words R9497 spells in letters (pep un, tun parte, xap le) and so fixed quitado, uno and quatro. [hablado] (xuf yic) is graded I and [quiere] (sob e; seb sob∞ is qualquiera in R9491) M. A second passage: Soria has pressed Antoniotto Adorno to make the republic pay what it owes under the capitulation [made in the time of Pope Leo]. Adorno has asked Martin Centurion to take it up with the Emperor. Andrea Doria came over to Charles V only in 1528, so this is an early approach.

09What remains uncertain

Key A code words not fixed: rip (3x, the Venetians, graded C), pur (3x, the Emperor’s side, M), qed (2x, the Swiss, M), mul, dus, cop, and the opener TZ.
Key B groups still open or guessed: yac, fob, taf, tu, pel, pug, zib, sib, xif, sab, 7 pes, per; guessed: paf tiempo, tin papa, sud respuesta, xa hasta (M).
Decipherments of R9491 lines 1–7 and the personal names in R9494 are graded M. The rest of the key-B passages are C, and the June and July key-A texts H/C.
Not collated sign by sign: R9490 (spot checks only), R9493 (checked at the doubtful words), R9496, and R9498 beyond the Doria passage.

10Sources

Real Academia de la Historia, Salazar y Castro A-28 (9/28), via DECODE R9488–R9498; Salazar A-30 (9/30) ff. 34–37, DECODE R9844 (the key-B crib).
G. A. Bergenroth, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, vol. 2, no. 586 (13 August 1523), on British History Online.
Language model: A. Rodríguez Villa / M. Danvila, Historia crítica y documentada de las Comunidades de Castilla (Memorial histórico español 37), the text used in targets/adrian1521/.

No page images are reproduced here: the scans are the Academy’s, served through DECODE to registered users.

Transcriptions, both keys with their evidence, and the solver are in the repository folder targets/soria1523/.