[split] Did the VM go straight from cerebellum to vellum?

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Your argument, if I remember it correctly, was that the Author did witness a lot of oriental imagery and designs, but couldn't properly explain/sketch it for the scribe, because the author was not able to sketch well enough.

Nonono, it's not like that, not at all.

The Chinese Origin Theory says that the Author was an "European" who lived for several years in "China".  Enough to have some command of the spoken language.  But he never cared or managed to learn their writing system.  He found out that they had many books about medicine, herbal remedies, and astronomy/astrology, very different from those that circulated in Europe.  He decided to take them with him at the end of his stay.   But he could not read the books, and copying the native script would have been pointless.  So he asked the local scholars which were the most important books on each subject, and paid someone to read them aloud, while he wrote them down in an alphabetic script that he devised for the purpose. 

Surely there were many terms and expressions that he did not understand, but he wrote them as they were dictated, hoping that, back home, he (or some doctor who might buy those transcripts) would eventually decipher their meaning.

As for the figures, he must have copied freehand the diagrams of Cosmo and Zodiac, and the organs and ducts of Bio; probably omitting any details that he recognized as decoration.   The illustrations of Pharma should be clean copies of his sketches, which he may have copied from the source book for that section, or obtained in some other way.  For the Herbal, he had only the text, not the illustrations; either because the source book did not have them, or he did not have time to copy them.

Back in Europe, he organized those notes and had them transcribed to vellum, either by himself or by a hired Scribe (I believe the latter, but it does not matter).  All the decorative elements, including nymphs hats pools canopies etc. were added at that time.

I put "European" in quotes because he may have been Arab, Jew, Turkish, Amenian, etc -- anything but "Chinese"; but was in Europe when the scribing to vellum took place.

And I put "China" in quotes because it could have been any place where they spoke a monosyllabic language.

So, the COT as per above is independent of the "The Scribe Was Not the Author" Theory.  And independent also from the Massive Retracing  Theory.

All the best, --stolfi