Scientists managed to decipher the letter of Charles V: it took six months
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, was an extremely influential personality of the sixteenth century. His reign lasted over 40 years, and he was one of the greatest political figures of his time, ruling over vast territories in Western Europe and America. Oddly enough, this power created many enemies, in particular, he had tense relations with France and its King Francis I.
This is reported by France24.com.
In 1547, Charles V sent a mysterious letter to his ambassador to France, Jean de Saint-Maurice, which was encrypted and remained undisclosed for five centuries. The letter was lost in the library archives in Nancy, France, but was accidentally found by researcher Cécile Pierrot. She began deciphering the cipher, which consisted of more than a hundred characters, including some that represented entire words, others that represented specific vowels, and some that were designed to confuse potential cipher breakers.
In June of this year, Cecile Pierrot made a breakthrough and was able to read a whole fragment of the letter, which allowed her to continue deciphering. It turned out that despite the peace treaty signed three years earlier, relations between Charles V and Francis I remained tense, and the emperor's letter expressed outrage at rumors of a conspiracy against him.
Scholars are now focusing on deciphering other letters of Charles V, which will allow them to assess his political contribution to the development of Europe.
As a reminder, an ancient pebble mosaic dating back to the 4th century BC was discovered in Turkey.
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