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+--- Thread: VM as a medieval design guide (/thread-6156.html)
VM as a medieval design guide - drom_is - 04-10-2026
Hello, everyone. i’ve registered to share my idea, because I didn’t find anything exactly similar on the site.
What if the VM is actually a medieval design guide on how to draw plausible illustrations for fantasy manuscripts?
As such, it could explain the content of botanical and astronomy sections.
Also it could explain its language, because it’s not a plain text but mostly a set of instructions how to produce illustrations from the same page.
I’ve asked ChatGPT and it found me the similar example of the same age: Göttingen Model Book (c. 1440). It is a book about generative drawing of ornaments.
Then, there is more elaborated, but more speculative idea, that explains why it’s encrypted. So the idea is, that it’s an internal handbook of highly skilled individual, who has created the fake manuscripts with ancient mysteries. As far as i know the 15th century saw a great interest in ancient books and also there are examples of such manuscripts. And to produce consistent mysteries over time someone had to record his ideas somewhere, but he obviously didn’t want for someone to uncover him, therefore the text is encrypted. This also explains why it is so hard to decipher, because private notes would contain some abbreviations, missing words, private terminology etc.
This idea could be tested, i guess, as similar plant illustrations should have similar text nearby, but i’m not technically skilled for that.
I hope I didn’t come with something that was discussed long ago and then discarded.
RE: VM as a medieval design guide - ololololo - 04-10-2026
A similar theory, “text as instructions,” alreadyYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
But it turns out that the resources used to write a simple drawing instruction are rather inefficient. How, then, can we relate this to the section on Zodiac and Rosetta, for example?
RE: VM as a medieval design guide - Rafal - 04-10-2026
If it is a manual of drawing then it is a very lame manual which doesn't serve its purpose as the pictures are really bad quality
RE: VM as a medieval design guide - eggyk - 04-10-2026
Firstly here is the digitisation for that book: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You can see that the example images display a clear pipeline for the images. Each image gets progressively more detailed as the steps are followed. This isn't seen in the VMS (afaik).
RE: VM as a medieval design guide - Oscroft - 04-10-2026
(Yesterday, 11:00 AM)eggyk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Firstly here is the digitisation for that book: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You can see that the example images display a clear pipeline for the images. Each image gets progressively more detailed as the steps are followed. This isn't seen in the VMS (afaik).
Also, those drawings are good!
