Cifras y sus secretarios. Un manuscrito desconocido de Tomás Tamayo de Vargas

Resumen

Codes and their secretaries. The unknown manuscript of Tomás Tamayo de Vargas

The study tries to approach the theme of secrecy applying the terminology presented by Assmann/Assmann in their studies of literary communication. Firstly, the theme of secrecy is divided into secrets of absolute knowledge about the world and into secrets as a social fact. The division of the theme in arcana cordis, arcana Dei, arcana imperii and arcana mundi is also taken into consideration. Secondly, some moments of the secretary discourse present in the manuscript Cifra, contracifra. Antigua y moderna by Tomás Tamayo de Vargas are discussed. These discursive moments reveal that in early modern Europe a secretary is in close contact with the secrets of absolute knowledge about the world. It is especially the proximity of its tools to those of the kabbalah and the problematization of the legibility of the world that contribute to the confusion between secrecy as a social fact and secrecy as a question of cognition.