The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

what is missing is the period of time where the ability of internet image search really started to flourish. This led to the comparison of certain VMs illustrations with particular historical images.

You are right, the greater availability of good digital images of Medieval manuscripts made research on the style of the illustrations much easier.

I would say that the biggest new result was the realization of how vast and varied is the universe of illustrations that the VMS should be compared to.  Which may be a negative development...  I would say that for any telephone doodle or child drawing we now can find at least two or three Medieval illustrations online that have at least some detail that is similar to it. 

But, on the other hand, the availability of the images and text of the "Alchemical Herbal" was a great advance, because it gave us clearer ideas about the Herbal section of the VMS.  Back in 2005 many people had already suspected that many of the VMS plants were just made up, or at least mangled beyond botanical logic and recognition.  We were aware of the "alchemical herbals" but we had not seen them, and did not know how popular they were, or of how stereotypical herbals were in general.  Now I think it is clear that the VMS plant drawings belong to the graphical tradition of Medieval herbals, and many were copied from those herbals, "alchemical" or not, at least in part.

depending on the provenance of the historical image, this provided certain chronological and/or geographical information of varying specificity

Yes.  Like  Koen's study of the merlons in the castles.

But just because a VMS drawing matches a drawing from a manuscript from the Abbey of Lostinthebunniesberg, we cannot conclude that the VMS scribe was from that town, or even from that country; or that the VMS was scribed there.  Manuscripts traveled a lot, maybe more than scholars...

All the best, --stolfi