Ormanetto and Clementino, Spain nunciature, 1576–77

01 The two records

R117 (ASV_i1025_SdS_Spain_10-1, two pages). Copia del Memorial dado por parte del obispo de Pamplona: the see fell vacant on 27 January 1573 at the death of Diego Ramírez. The Pope held back the bulls of the new bishop, Antonio Manrique, for nine months, and the memorial argues that those months’ fruits belong to the bishop. The right-hand column repeats the sums in Roman numerals with the Spanish thousands sign (xbnUdn L-ix, xxxbjUdn — m). Those sums are what DECODE catalogued as “ciphers within cleartext”.

R118 (ASV_i1025_SdS_Spain_10-2, one page). The figures are undated on the leaf. The note below the figures reads:

Il Nuntio ha trattato col Sig.r Perez tutto quello che V.S. Ill.ma scrive con la cifra di 19 di sett.re, il qual Sig.r ha promesso di buoni uffici al Re, et di procurare risposta, de la quale V.S. Ill.ma sarà poi sabbato avvisata.

The nuncio has discussed with Signor Pérez everything Your Most Illustrious Lordship writes in the cipher of 19 September. He has promised his good offices with the King and to obtain an answer, of which Your Lordship will be told on Saturday. The letter therefore dates from the autumn of 1576 or 1577, not from 9 January 1576, which is only the start of the volume’s date range.

02 The reading

Every sign of R118 reads. Spelling is as enciphered (no h, no doubled letters, u for v):

scrita ali 15 di otobre. Il nuntio a comunicato col secretario Perez [tutto] [quello] [che] [V.S. Ill.ma] scrive con la cifra di 19 di setembre; il [qua]le segretario a promeso di darne conto al [Re], [et] di procurarne risposta, de la [qua]le [V.S. Ill.ma] sarà poi subito avisata. (six null signs: s t c z p l)

Written 15 October. The Nuncio has communicated to Secretary Pérez everything Your Most Illustrious Lordship writes in the cipher of 19 September. The Secretary has promised to report it to the King and to obtain an answer, of which Your Lordship will shortly be advised. Bracketed words are code groups: 6̇11 tutto, 2̇44 quello, 66 che, 9̇11 V.S. Ill.ma, 3̇44 Re, a lone 3 for et, and 5̇2̇2 for the syllable qua. The figures 15 and 19 are written as numbers under an overline.

The clear Italian note on the leaf is the same text: Il Nuntio ha c[om]unicato col Sec[reta]rio Perez tutto quello che V.S. Ill.ma scrive con la cifra di 19 di sett.re, il q[ua]l Sec[reta]rio ha promesso di darne conto al Re, et di procurarne risp.ta, de la q[ua]le V.S. Ill.ma sarà poi subbito avvisata. It is the Rome decifrato, and it leaves out only the dateline, scritta alli 15 di ottobre. The year is not in the cipher. Ormanetto died on 18 June 1577 and his successor Filippo Sega reached Madrid on 11 October 1577, so “il Nuntio” on 15 October is Ormanetto in 1576 or Sega four days after he arrived. The third person suggests that nunciature staff wrote it for the nuncio; DECODE’s “Clementino” is not identified.

03 The key, and why 21 September missed it

The key is the Spain nunciature’s cifra ordinaria, of which Meister (1906, p. 265) prints only the rules. Ajaydas Devadas reconstructed it from the images on this site and the ciphertext files on GitHub, with Claude, and emailed it with a report on 1 October 2026. It is a homophonic cipher with two signs for each letter:

A dot over a lone digit is part of the sign. 0̇x is a dotted zero followed by x; x0 is x closed by an undotted zero.

Three things made it hard to see. First, the unit of the cipher is not the digit: an undotted 0 closes the digit before it and a dotted 0 opens the next one. Second, the cross-stroke on a 2, a 4 or a 5 is a word-end mark; the earlier transcription wrote it as a 4 or a barred 4, and the crib aligner of 21 September counted it as a letter. Third, the note under the figures was misread: trattato, Sig.r, buoni uffici and sabbato are abbreviated forms of comunicato, Secretario, darne conto and subbito. With the strokes as word breaks and the dotted zeros as openers, the figures give Italian words immediately.

04 Checks

• The scan. Lines 1–3 and 5 of the leaf were compared sign by sign with the token list: 20 7̇ 0̇5 3 0̇7 40 is scrita, 3 80 | 90 10 6̇ 0̇7 3 0̇3 is il nuntio, and the overlined 15 and 19 are on the page. Lines 4 and 6 were not compared by eye.
• Each line decoded. The script dec118.py decodes the six lines from the key and compares them with the reading: 12 lines of the table agree, none differs.
• The sibling. The same key reads R116 (1573), an independent ciphertext of more than a thousand signs, as Italian. A key fitted to one short text would not do that.
• The leaf. The reading matches the contemporary decifrato word for word, apart from the dateline.

05 What remains open

• The year, 1576 or 1577, and who wrote it. The register of the Cardinal of Como’s ciphers to Spain, or the Spagna 10 index, would settle both.
• The transcription (r118_cipher.txt) is digits only and cannot carry the key. A dotted transcription of all six lines, from the image, is still to be made before a read fraction can be measured here.
• R117 needs nothing: a clear Spanish memorial.

Full texts

The transcription and the decryption of every document on this page, so that the reading can be used and checked. Short files are shown here; all are in the repository.

Spain nunciature, 15 Oct [1576 or 1577], ASV Spagna 10 f. 365 (DECODE R118)

Written 15 October: the nuncio has communicated to Secretary Pérez everything Your Lordship (V.S. Ill.ma) wrote in the cipher of 19 September; Pérez has promised to report it to the King and obtain an answer, which will be sent at once. The clear Italian note on the leaf is the contemporary decipherment, minus the dateline; the year is open (Ormanetto in 1576 or Sega in 1577).

# Output of dec118.py, run 22 Oct 2026: A. Devadas's token transcription of the six lines (dots kept, | = word-end stroke, [x] = code group) decoded with the cifra ordinaria and compared with his plaintext. Verbatim script output.
ok   20 7. 05 3 07 40 | 4. 2. 08 | [15] | 04 3 | 03 07 03 02 05 60 -> scrita ali [15] di otobre
ok   3 80 | 90 10 6. 07 3 03 | 40 | 7. 03 2 10 90 3 50 40 9 6 | 50 03 80 -> il nuntio a comunicato col
ok   9. 60 50 05 60 9 40 05 3 03 | 30 60 05 60 09 -> secretario perez
ok   [6.11] | [2.44] | [66] | [9.11] -> [6.11] [2.44] [66] [9.11]
ok   20 7. 05 3 10 60 50 03 90 | 2. 40 | 50 3 06 05 40 -> scriuecon la cifra
ok   04 3 | [19] | 04 3 | 9. 60 9 5. 01 4 05 60 -> di [19] di setembre
ok   3 80 | [5.2.2] 80 60 | 20 60 7: 05 60 9 40 05 3 03 -> il [5.2.2]le segretario
ok   40 | 30 05 6 2 60 9. 03 | 04 3 | 04 40 05 90 60 | 50 6 90 9 6 | 40 80 | [3.44] -> a promeso di darne conto al [3.44]
ok   [3] | 04 3 | 30 05 6 7. 10 05 40 05 90 60 | 05 3 9. 30 6 9. 07 40 -> [3] di procurarne risposta
ok   7 60 2. 40 | [5.2.2] 80 60 | [9.11] | 9. 40 05 4. -> dela [5.2.2]le [9.11] sara
ok   30 03 08 | 9. 10 4 3 07 03 | 40 10 3 9. 40 07 40 -> poi subito auisata
ok   20 07 50 09 30 2. -> stczpl
12 lines consistent, 0 differ

# DECODE R118, ASV Segr. Stato Spagna 10, f. 365 (stamped 350). Digits as read from the scan, dots over digits ignored,
# X = the 4 with a double cross-bar. Lines 1-2 read at 3x zoom; lines 3-6 at 2x and less certain.
2070530740244208X15240434X03070302056024380X90106073032440X703210903550
40962450038042960505056094005303243060056009246112424456624911242070531060
5003902424040X503060540240432419410432496095014056024380245228060242060
70560940053032404X300562609032404324044005906024506090624408024344243043
30056721005400590602405393063074024760240245228060249112494005424300308
910430703244010394007402420075009302

# Copied verbatim from NOTES.md, section 'R118 as read' (22 Oct 2026): the reading with code groups resolved, and its translation.
Italian: *scrita ali 15 di otobre. Il nuntio a comunicato col secretario Perez tutto quello che V.S. Ill.ma scrive con la cifra di 19 di setembre; il quale segretario
a promeso di darne conto al Re, et di procurarne risposta, de la quale V.S. Ill.ma sara poi subito avisata* + six null signs (s t c z p l). "Written 15 October. The Nuncio
has communicated to Secretary Perez everything Your Lordship writes in the cipher of 19 September; the Secretary has promised to report it to the King and to procure
an answer, of which Your Lordship will shortly be advised." The clear Italian note on the leaf is the contemporary decifrato of this text, **minus the dateline**. Our 21 Sept
readings of the note ("trattato", "Sig.r", "buoni uffici", "sabbato") were abbreviations misread, which is why the crib test failed.

# Spain nunciature, 15 October [1576 or 1577], ASV Spagna 10 f. 365 (DECODE R118): English translation

Translation (Claude Opus 5.5, 23 Oct 2026) of the Italian reading in `texts/R118_decryption.md` (code groups resolved;
six null signs left out). No holes.

## Translation

Written on the 15th of October. The Nuncio has communicated to Secretary Pérez everything that Your Most Illustrious
Lordship writes in the cipher of the 19th of September; the said Secretary has promised to give an account of it to the
King and to procure an answer, of which Your Most Illustrious Lordship will then be advised at once.

06 Sources

• Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Segr. Stato, Spagna 10: DECODE R117 (ff. 245–246), DECODE R118 (f. 365). Images require a DECODE login.
• A. Devadas, reconstruction of the Spain nunciature’s ordinary cipher and its reading of R116 and R118, report and scripts sent by email, 1 October 2026.
• A. Meister, Die Geheimschrift im Dienste der päpstlichen Kurie (Paderborn 1906), pp. 262–265: the rules of the ordinary Spain cipher.
• G. Lasry, reconstructed key of ASV Francia 283C (1580), DECODE R72 (tested on 21 September; a different system).

Notes, transcription, the decoder and the earlier crib aligner: targets/ormanetto1576/.