Is the VM an autograph or copy?

[nickpelling]

In "The Curse of the Voynich" (2006), I gave some specific codicological reasons why I concluded the creator of the Voynich Manuscript went out of their way to preserve the layout and structure of previous document(s).

1. There's a hole (apparently integral to the page design) that was physically rubbed through the vellum (no mean task). I contend that this is a copy of a vellum hole in the page being copied from

2. There's a substantial vertical gap at the edge on both sides of a page in Quire 20 (Q20). I contend that this is a copy of a vellum tear in the page being copied from.

The zodiac figures, as Koen and others (including myself) have discussed at length here and on blogs, seem highly likely to be copies from an Alsace calendar from the 1420s. But given that every other figure in the manuscript seems to be drawn in a different style, my belief is that it's hard to get anything from this except an earliest date.

The wolkenband star drawing, as Ellie Velinska and I blogged about, seems to have been directly influenced by drawings added to Nicole Oresme's Traité de la sphère in the early 15th century, e.g. BNF Français 565:
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
* You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
My conclusion was "If this is correct, then what we are looking at in the Voynich Manuscript’s “Andromeda” T-O page would seem to be a curiously stripped-down copy of a very specific T-O map."