Unlocking History Number (UH#)

UH0217


Original

Jacques Sennacques’s virtually unfolded letter to his cousin Pierre le Pers, France (1697) in the Brienne Collection, Sound & Vision The Hague, DB-1627


Model and research notes

MIT Libraries, Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC0760, Box 21–24.


Letterlocking Unique Video Number(s) (LUV #s) & Instructional video(s) URL

LUV217 https://youtu.be/kP4Z3YOIgRk 


Instructional video info transcription

Forthcoming


Letterlocking category Number (LC #)

LC05L (unopened)


Letterlocking format Number (LF #)

4RW


Security score

Low


Assessment of Confidence in assigning LC#

Attested (virtually)


Substrate

Paper


Dimensions

Opened (in mm):         H: c. 200mm x W: c. 267mm       

Letterpacket (in mm):  H:       60mm x W:     107mm


Manifestation

Unopened (virtually opened)


Distinctive letterlocking style(s)

Triangle inside

Unopened

Virtual unlocking


Locking Mechanism

Closure flap


Security enhancements


Letterlocking category formula (shorthand)

LC5 

Fold + Adhere

(F + A)


Letterlocking manipulation sequence (shorthand)

Forthcoming


Locking instructions

Forthcoming


Images 

Images: View: address side; reverse side

Images: Download: address side; reverse side


03 Brienne Collection letterlocking data: Images folder 09/16, DB-1564_02–DB-1658_01, Harvard Dataverse        https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/2CPWNS       


Foldable(s)

Foldable_for_DB1627_screenreader.pdf 


Step-by-steps 

Forthcoming


Substrate map

Forthcoming


Virtual unfolding results

DB-1627_results.zip


DB-1627_texturing_results.zip


Virtual unfolding code

"virtual unfolding" computational pipeline


Manipulations

Writing: NA

Postal: "10" chalk postage on address panel

Opening: NA

Filing (Storage, Display): NA

Repair: NA


Damage

Wormholes


Features

Dirt on panels/ in crease


Transcription and translation

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MgNbxtvqqrLo2zDcKnrzzhFLRt7Fm_QX8oM01b4b5uQ/edit?tab=t.0 


Article(s)

2023. Daniel Starza Smith & Jana Dambrogio. Letterlocking: securing correspondence before envelopes in Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. Lauren Shohet, subject editor. 


2021. Unlocking history through automated virtual unfolding of sealed documents imaged by X-ray microtomography 


2019. “Letters”, with Elizabethanne Boran & Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig with Rebekah Ahrendt, Nadine Akkerman, Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, & David van der Linden. in Reassembling the Republic of Letters in the Digital Age, ed. by Howard Hotson & Thomas Wallnig, (Göttingen: Göttingen University Press). 63–67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2019-1146


Book 

Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, and the Unlocking History Research Group. Letterlocking, The Hidden History of the Letter. Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2025.


Further resources

Jacques Sennacques letter to Pierre le Pers, catalog entry, Early Modern Letters Online (EMLO), Bodleian Library, Brienne Collection  


Citation for the letter(s)

UH0217

Original 

Jacques Sennaques to Pierre Le Pers, France (1697) in the Brienne Collection, Sound and Vision The Hague, DB-1627


Model

MIT Libraries, Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC0760, Box 21–24.


Video

UH217

Amanda Ghassaei, Holly Jackson, Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, the Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered team, and the Unlocking History Research Group. “Brienne Postal Archive: Jacques Sennacques’s virtually unfolded letter to his cousin Pierre le Pers, France (1697)." Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0217/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 0217. Filmed: 30 July 2021. Duration: 1:34. Posted: 2 March 2022. URL: Accessed: March 4, 2025.