Pirrho Musefili

Pirrho Musefili was a Florentine cryptographer and cryptanalyst whose recorded activity falls between 1546 and 1557. He worked by solving ciphers and cryptograms for clients, and the English Wikipedia names among them the King of England, King Henry II of France, the Duke of Alba and the powerful of Denmark. He is also named as the teacher of Camilo Giusti, called his student and successor, and because of the wide area their cryptographic services covered, the two are noted as important for the spread of cryptology beyond Italy. The article gives no birth or death date, so his place among the people of the sixteenth century rests on the period in which he is recorded as active.