[Talk] Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019

[Koen G]

Let's not make more of this than it is: Marco's translated notes about a semi-informal talk Touwaide gave for the occasion of the "return" of the VM (facsimile) to the Villa. I would pay more attention to exact wording if it were a peer-reviewed publication, but it's not.

But I really wanted to know his current ideas, so I appreciate that you shared it. In general, I take away two things:

- Touwaide sees connections with botanical manuscript traditions, but the images have been manipulated. This is completely within the area in which he is a renowned authority. I personally also agree with what he said along these lines.

- Touwaide has more sympathy for some form of "modern forgery" theory than most of us expected. It's hard to say from this one talk to what extent he really believes the VM could be a modern forgery, and whether he would really argue this in a more formal publication. I personally disagree with any modern forgery theory because there is zero evidence, while evidence for early 15th century is abundant.

This goes to show again how unusually difficult and complex the study of this object is.