Fakery?

[GlennM]

I learned that all behavior is motivated. With regard to the making of the VM, what is that motivation? One could argue that it is a compendium of herbal remedies. Unfortunately, most illustrations are imaginary at worst, or a second hand interpretation of someone's description at best. Add to this the fact that there is not just one, but numerous botanicals. Does this suggest that long ago somebody was willing to sit down and describe in detail some foreign exotic plants to the author? Would that justify the encryption of the whole volume? It seems, to me,  doubtful since what was told  (or sold) to one author could be done to another, nullifying the need for encryption.

Then, which came first, the method of encryption or the illustration of the botanical? I am thinking the VM was a picture book first with writing to follow later on. For me, the implication is that as long as the author remembers what needs to be written, he/she can spend a month of Sundays cobbling together an alphabet, a language, and a cipher. It is a lot of trouble for something that actually does not exist. That, of course implies there was meaning to any of this. The brightest minds for several centuries could not figure out the message . That in itself speaks volumes. 

Occams razor. Making a fake herbsl book for profit with a bevy of fun loving nymphs is a lot quicker than trying to obfuscate meaningful second hand information regarding material that actually does not exist, nor ever did.