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

[oshfdk]

Er, are there any "universal truths" about the VMS?

It is real. It has been around for at least a century. It has naked ladies. The collective effort put into attempts of understanding it likely far outweighs the effort put into creating it.

Well, so you are opening up to the idea that the Author my have obtained the contents somewhere else in the world.  Good... 

One of my authors is stuck in prison and needless to say is quite envious of your authors traveling the world.

It does make sense that a traveler would write his travel notes on vellum with iron-gall ink to protect them from water damage.  However, travelers had other means to do that, such as hermetic recipients.

This is a so-called non-sequitur, the fact that there are other methods doesn't mean vellum is not a viable alternative. Also, ship scribes may still have a luxury of their own cabin where they can store their watertight containers and write on a proper desk, etc. The traveling author is a real adventurer, crossing deserts, mountains and rivers on a trusty horse or on foot and has to write the manuscript in places that offer no protection from the elements whatsoever.

But the VMS does not look at all like the notes that a traveler would write down during his trip.  Such notes would have no decoration, and would use the vellum more fully, with narrower margins and no big blank spaces.  The Pharma section could be such a draft, perhaps.  Not the others...

These are not travel notes, it's a proper book designed and drafted while traveling. Maybe there even were paper notes for quick drafting and sketching, but these were temporary, because they couldn't survive the harsh conditions of the journey. The idea was to make it as close to the final version as possible while traveling and then give it to the scribes. There was also a charm on the last page, that should have protected the draft against nasty retracers, but it got damaged first and then was rendered ineffective by the very first attempt to retrace it. Alas.

But, if it was a draft, why not just cross out that part?

Because it's in a cipher and it is much easier to crack a cipher if you can clearly see one word being crossed out and replaced by another. Good cipher would even encipher the mistakes in the cipher.

And how would he disguise insertions and reorderings, which are very common types of corrections?

For only 0.5 Coynich I can make up a plausible way of doing this too. Payment upfront.