I would consider the possibility that the VMS might be a 16th-century forgery intended to look like a 15th -century or late-14th-century manuscript.
But a modern forgery? The person would have to have centuries-old materials, centuries-old knowledge, a year of free-time, AND would have be completely bonkers to include so many hundreds of minute and unnecessary details. Forgeries are created for some kind of gain (usually monetary). Those specific kinds of details not only are not profitable, because they are time-consuming, they aren't even the kind of thing that would pop into the head of a forger.
Take, for example, the tiny notches on the blue fan-wheel in the cosmo section. Not a detail found in other manuscripts and not the least bit necessary for a forgery to seem genuine, and definitely not the kind of detail that would appear necessary or even within the imagination of most forgers to include.
Or the great quantity of similar small-plant roots. You could cut the number of plants in that section by 40% and still pass it off as a genuine plant section. A forger wouldn't draw the root of the aquatic lily-like plant with every detail of the leaf scars or scales. That just wasn't done in the 15th century, and thus would be an unnecessary waste of time... unless it was by someone who knew and loved plants who really WANTED to record these fine points.
Maybe someone added blarney-text to drawings that were already there. It's posssible. I don't think it's what happened, but it's possible. Are the drawings forgeries? I think it's unlikely. Why would a forger choose the more rare depictions of Sagittarius and Scorpio? Wouldn't that attract suspicion, if you consider that it doesn't increase the value of the manuscript? Why would they drawn 30% more nymphs than would be needed to get the idea across? Why the anatomically incorrect animals? Why laboriously draw so many nymphs around the zodiac animals when half as many would do (or when sheer patterns would do since that's how it was frequently done in the middle ages)?
The VMS shows many signs of being a labor of love. Forgeries generally are not.
But a modern forgery? The person would have to have centuries-old materials, centuries-old knowledge, a year of free-time, AND would have be completely bonkers to include so many hundreds of minute and unnecessary details. Forgeries are created for some kind of gain (usually monetary). Those specific kinds of details not only are not profitable, because they are time-consuming, they aren't even the kind of thing that would pop into the head of a forger.
Take, for example, the tiny notches on the blue fan-wheel in the cosmo section. Not a detail found in other manuscripts and not the least bit necessary for a forgery to seem genuine, and definitely not the kind of detail that would appear necessary or even within the imagination of most forgers to include.
Or the great quantity of similar small-plant roots. You could cut the number of plants in that section by 40% and still pass it off as a genuine plant section. A forger wouldn't draw the root of the aquatic lily-like plant with every detail of the leaf scars or scales. That just wasn't done in the 15th century, and thus would be an unnecessary waste of time... unless it was by someone who knew and loved plants who really WANTED to record these fine points.
Maybe someone added blarney-text to drawings that were already there. It's posssible. I don't think it's what happened, but it's possible. Are the drawings forgeries? I think it's unlikely. Why would a forger choose the more rare depictions of Sagittarius and Scorpio? Wouldn't that attract suspicion, if you consider that it doesn't increase the value of the manuscript? Why would they drawn 30% more nymphs than would be needed to get the idea across? Why the anatomically incorrect animals? Why laboriously draw so many nymphs around the zodiac animals when half as many would do (or when sheer patterns would do since that's how it was frequently done in the middle ages)?
The VMS shows many signs of being a labor of love. Forgeries generally are not.
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