I think many people underestimate the amount of copying that went on in the middle ages, and how little material was actually original.
Also in literary traditions, many supposedly original works drew heavily on oral traditions, examples of the ancients, examples from other countries...
Take for example one of Flanders' most prized Medieval works, "Van den Vos Reynaerde" (Renard the Fox). It is considered by many the best version of this story, and the author is often praised for his skills, but the material is by no means original, and by no means the first reynaert we know.
Add to that the fact that Medieval authors cite their sources even less often than Voynicheros, unless they think it gives their work an air of authority through the ancient author.
Diane's angel example may not be the clearest one. What about dragons, for example? What she means is, I think, that some images can live in a culture and in a person's mind, without the person ever having witnessed said object "in the flesh".
If I ask you to draw an angel, you can't go to the field and observe one. You will either have to copy it from another source, or access the cultural conventions stored in your mind. You will draw a guy with wings and a halo and people will recognize it as an angel, even though they don't even exist. That is because there is a tradition of drawing angels in the West, and people know which elements and symbols constitute one. Ask someone from a different culture to draw an angel, and they will draw something else entirely.
The same still goes for modern day cultural images, by the way.. I have never seen an alien, but I could draw one and people would recognize it as one. I have never seen a humanoid robot, but I could draw a pot-and-pan robot and people who are used to that tradition will know it right away.
The same could have happened with plants among botanists: they knew certain conventions, an could draw a plant without having to have seen it or without copying it from an exact source.
I don't see any problem with the assumption that the imagery in the Voynich Manuscript is the only surviving example in its tradition. In fact, that hypothesis would explain a lot.
Also in literary traditions, many supposedly original works drew heavily on oral traditions, examples of the ancients, examples from other countries...
Take for example one of Flanders' most prized Medieval works, "Van den Vos Reynaerde" (Renard the Fox). It is considered by many the best version of this story, and the author is often praised for his skills, but the material is by no means original, and by no means the first reynaert we know.
Add to that the fact that Medieval authors cite their sources even less often than Voynicheros, unless they think it gives their work an air of authority through the ancient author.
Diane's angel example may not be the clearest one. What about dragons, for example? What she means is, I think, that some images can live in a culture and in a person's mind, without the person ever having witnessed said object "in the flesh".
If I ask you to draw an angel, you can't go to the field and observe one. You will either have to copy it from another source, or access the cultural conventions stored in your mind. You will draw a guy with wings and a halo and people will recognize it as an angel, even though they don't even exist. That is because there is a tradition of drawing angels in the West, and people know which elements and symbols constitute one. Ask someone from a different culture to draw an angel, and they will draw something else entirely.
The same still goes for modern day cultural images, by the way.. I have never seen an alien, but I could draw one and people would recognize it as one. I have never seen a humanoid robot, but I could draw a pot-and-pan robot and people who are used to that tradition will know it right away.
The same could have happened with plants among botanists: they knew certain conventions, an could draw a plant without having to have seen it or without copying it from an exact source.
I don't see any problem with the assumption that the imagery in the Voynich Manuscript is the only surviving example in its tradition. In fact, that hypothesis would explain a lot.