Gabriele de Lavinde

Gabriele de Lavinde of Parma was an Italian cryptologist who served Pope Clement VII. In approximately 1379, he compiled the first European manual on cryptography. This manual, now housed in the Vatican archives, contains a set of keys for 24 correspondents. It includes symbols for letters and nulls, as well as two-character code equivalents for words and names. This work was part of the early development of nomenclators, which were gradually expanded and became essential for diplomatic communications across Europe for centuries.1

Cryptology is the science of secure data communication and storage, encompassing both cryptography (creating secure communication) and cryptanalysis (breaking secure communication). Early manual cryptography, used until World War I, was limited by human capability. The mechanization of cryptography after World War I, and its further extension into the information age, significantly advanced the field.213