[split] Relying on external imagery

[Searcher]

The nature and structure of the text points to me of an imaginative individual it therefore seems very likely that the drawings are correspondingly imaginative rather than duplicates. If it is a copy of an existing manuscript, but written with enciphered or meaningless text then why do that when the viewer could look at the original?
It seems that if choose to encipher something, if it is enciphered, then you do so to protect some original or unique content.

Similarly if you are trying to produce a mysterious object for sale then it makes sense to produce content that is more mysterious.
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Of course, I think the manuscript is one of it's time and therefore influenced by other manuscripts from that time or before, such as alchemical herbals, but I do think there is an underemphasis on the author's inventiveness and far too much emphasis on illustrations from other manuscripts that if one squints loosely resemble what we see in the Voynich.

Here I absolutely agree. The cipher (the unknown script of the unknown content) is the main diifference between the VMs and usual medieval manuscripts. The most of known ciphered manuscripts don't contain any illustration at all, obviously, by the reason to keep their secret which could be revealed due to some details of pictures. If I would be encryptor I'd like to put images that confuse readers, lead away from a matter of a text, or, in another case, I'd make realated and meaningful but quite incomprehensible images.