At a glanceNot solved · text not obtained
- The letter
- Fr. Pedro de Vico, at Avignon, to Guillem Carbonell, canon of Barcelona, 4 December 1398.
- Where
- Arxiu Capitular de Barcelona, among the Schism papers Francesc Climent left to the chapter. Not digitised. Printed by Sebastián Puig y Puig, Pedro de Luna (1920), appendix XIX, p. 461.
- The cipher
- Unknown. Puig’s note 3: “Sigue una línea cifrada, de clave desconocida”, a ciphered line follows, in an unknown key.
- Still open
- All of it. Puig did not print the line, and no image of the letter exists.
01 The letter and its line
Sebastián Puig y Puig printed fourteen letters from the Schism papers of Francesc Climent, Benedict XIII’s agent in Barcelona, with their cipher passages deciphered. This letter, of 4 December 1398, is not one of them. He printed its clear text as appendix XIX and noted that a ciphered line follows, “de clave desconocida”, in a key he did not know, without printing it. Benedict XIII’s own cipher letters, whose key was rebuilt here from Puig’s one facsimile page, are on Benedict XIII to Climent, 1399–1403 (a different cipher, with its own page).
The original is not digitised, and the archivist Josep Mas noted that Puig studied many of these papers at home in 1920–30 and did not return them all. The line may survive in the Arxiu Capitular de Barcelona, or not at all.
02 What remains
- The cipher line: not read. Blocker: needs the original. Without its signs nothing can be tried, not even Benedict XIII’s key.
03 Sources
- S. Puig y Puig, Pedro de Luna, último papa de Aviñón (1387–1430), Barcelona 1920, appendix XIX, p. 461 and n. 3. Full view on Google Books (CuOlkxWnk-EC).
- J. Baucells i Reig, El fons Cisma d’Occident de l’Arxiu Capitular de la Catedral de Barcelona, Barcelona 1978, pp. 11–13.
Notes and profile: targets/vico1398/.