Trithemius’ crypto-magical work Steganogaphia has been calling to me over the last year or so, but I hadn’t the time to really dig up a copy. This work existed in manuscript form since approximately 1500, and had its first printing in Frankfurt in 1606. Many of the English language versions, and even Latin versions by British hands, contain only the first and third (of three) chapters, somewhat inexplicably but ultimately as a result of the source text in the British Library consisting only of these. Fortunately, Google Books comes to the rescue with a full 1608 edition, being a copy of the digital version from the Bavarian State Library. (Their stamp is clearly visible.)
At any rate, I expect to start transcribing it shortly. Once that’s complete, I’ll start thinking about translation, but one daunting task at a time…
My interest in this work stems from John Dee’s own interest, as well as a personal fascination with Trithemius as a part of the early Renaissance’s intellectual debate on the various forms and functions of magic – as well as the surrounding doctrinal debate.
Dee famously writes William Cecil in 1563 that a thousand crowns had been offered for Steganographia to no avail, but he had finally managed to obtain a copy while traveling on the continent. What I didn’t know until a bout of insomnia had me researching at two in the morning was that Dee’s manuscript copy of Steganographia has survived and is in the National Library of Wales as Peniarth MS 423D – also now digitized and available! This MS has only recently been recognized as being in Dee’s handwriting, and how it got back to Wales is unknown (at least to me). The reference material on the website gives a short overview of Daniel Huws’ work on this recognition.
I look forward to comparing this with the 1608 printed edition, given that Dee’s manuscript copy predates it by 45 years. If anyone is aware of any older copy, let me know!