Tartini's secret code
Reasons for Tartini's use of a secret code are speculative, but it is likely that he used it to hide secular ideas from works played in church. Until Dounias deciphered the code in 1932 (using the now standard method of analysis of letter frequency), many outlandish theories were forwarded about the mystical qualities of what was written. The rather prosaic quotations from libretti by Pietro Metastasio came as a disappointment to many! The code is a simple substitution-cipher:
