The Devil's letter is a 17th century coded message which featured a bizarre mixture of letters from archaic alphabets written by Maria Crocifissa della Concezione, a Sicilian nun who claimed to be possessed by Lucifer at the Palma di Montechiaro convent in 1676. For centuries no one was able to decipher the messages. Until 2017, a group of researchers claimed has been successfully translate part of the letter using software from the dark web.
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| The letter Sister Maria wrote (Image credit: Mirror.co.uk) |
Sister Maria Crocifissa was born with the name Isabella Tomasi in 1645, but was rechristened once she entered the Benedictine convent at Palma di Montechiaro aged 15. She is the daughter of Prince Giulio Tomasi di Lampedusa and ancestor of Giuseppe Tommasi di Lampedusa, author of "The Leopard".
The original Devil's letter is kept in the monastery of the Benedictine nuns of Palma di Montechiaro (Monastery of the Holy Rosary). While copies of the letter are kept in the Cathedral of Agrigento and in the Lucca library of Agrigento.
According to the story, on the morning of 11 August 1676, Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione is found in Cella seated on the ground out of feeling with her left half face smeared with black ink, holding a Calamare on a flap, and under her left hand a small sheet of unreadable script. She telling her sisters she had been possessed by Satan. At previous night, she was writing letters and she has been screaming and fainting while writing the notes, which she said the devil dictated to her.
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| Palma di Montechiaro (Image credit: youontour.it) |
She claimed the possession was part of Lucifer's plan to turn her against God and convince her to serve evil. Only she understood the text of the letter, which from then on she signed it with her reply: 'oh dear', still clearly visible.
The nuns believed her, and while they - and the generations of nuns who came after them - could not make sense of the coded letters, they displayed it at the convent. However only one of Sister Maria’s letters composed in 1676 survived, and its text had stumped scholars and codebreakers since then.
Many people have tried to decode it over the centuries, but no one has succeeded. From 23 January to 29 February 2000, the letter was exposed to the public on the occasion of the third centenary of the death of the nun. A copy was also presented, some time later, at the Cathedral of Agrigento, following the opening of the "Treasure Room"; this to allow easy viewing to a wider audience.
In September 2017, part of it has finally been decoded. A group of researchers from the Ludum Science Center of Catania, using military-grade decryption software, as well as computer scientists, the staff also included psychologists and historians would have successfully translated 70% of the letter. While 30% of the document remained incomprehensible.
Daniele Abate, director of the centre, said at that time: "It took us four months to decipher it and thanks to a software downloaded from the deep web which is used by Turkish intelligence to decrypt ISIS secret messages. After tracing a psychological profile of the nun, we inserted the Latin alphabet, ancient Greek, Arabic, the runic alphabet and that of the Yazidis in the algorithm: the meaning that emerges from the mysterious code is'God does not exist, trinity is a fake, there is only me'. The letter, is said to describe God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit as "deadweights" and states: "God thinks he can free mortals" but "this system works for no one." It even goes as far as to claim that God was invented by man." There is also a reference made within the writing to the the River Styx, which in Greek mythology is said to separate the realm of the living from the underworld.
Here is the complete translation of the letter:
"Of symbols that I who clausa livegio know are the source of a misfortune perhaps now, Styx is certain <tliyi vuode since I Christ the Zoroaster follow the ancient ways or seamstresses sewn by men, oh dear, restore me, serve no one, this is a ballast system. three a god that I feel free mortals xi I am always for this."
After translating the letter, he said the contents of the letter made him believe Sister Maria may had become very adept at linguistics during her years at the convent, and scientists believe the letter is in fact written in a language of her own invention - a mishmash of the alphabets she had come to know. There is possibility that she may have been suffering from schizophrenia.
The group translated 15 lines of the letter and found that it discusses the relationship between humans, God and Satan.
They say the letter is rambling and not entirely consistent and understandable. This supports the theory held by modern scientists that - rather than being 'possessed by the devil' - Sister Maria may suffered from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
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