No text, but a visual code

[Jorge_Stolfi]

This unusual herbal is bound in a book to a set of folios with cosmological, astrological and zodiacal drawings with female figures that we also see in another section with tubes. ... [The] theory that all of this was bound together without any connection between the parts. ... [is] highly unlikely. History has bequeathed this book to us as a whole, in a single piece. It is a fact that its authors intended to transmit it to us in this way, regardless of the various bindings it has undergone.

But, again, it is almost certain now that the VMS existed for a time as a stack of loose bifolios or unbound quires, which were bound together when the Author was no longer around.  

So the connection between the sections is not there, it only should be there...

The shared details between Herbal and Pharma suggest that the former is sort of an "expanded version" of the latter. Apart form that, to me each section of the VMS looks like a transcription (or summary, re-elaboration, imitation, ...) of a separate source book, probably by a different ur-author, with its own distinctive theme and format.  Possibly even with a distinctive dialect...

Collections of disparate texts copied and bound together are not at all uncommon. I have seen examples in many online libraries. In the case of copies made for personal use, joint binding saved money, and possibly weight and space...

The shared script only shows that all sections were compiled by the same Author.  The similar illustration styles between Zodiac, Bio, and Cosmo only say that they were probably penned by the same Scribe.

All the best, --stolfi