How could you prove that VM is gibberish?

[rikforto]

My best guess is that about 80% are meaningless and 20% are meaningful

80% of the text is bogus filler words? Why so much when fewer would have been more economical? So many more sheets of expensive parchment needed just to overbloat the manuscript with meaningless words?

Cards on the table, I share your intuition about verbose cipher theories---though I will look at Mark's theory with an open mind if he ever feels confident enough to share it, not least of all because I don't think it's that hard to imagine someone paying for such an inefficient ruse. One possible reason for the expense? It's turned out to be a damned fine cipher that has foiled technology and code breaking know-how and resources a 15th Century writer could hardly have conceived. Whatever the person behind this cipher paid to keep people from reading it, I think it's fair to say they got what they paid for.

And yes, I understand this kicks the football down the field to "why the desire for a lot of secrecy?" and I would hope that a decipherment could answer the extreme lengths supposed here, but in a world without academic or religious freedom and no copyright protection, a measure of furtiveness is hardly inconceivable.