A match for the famous Armadillo?

[Jorge_Stolfi]

The question however remains how and where the VM artist got hold of a copy of Taccola's book then?

Considering Taccola's fame, there must have been hundreds of copies (and copies of copies, and ...) of his book going around in the 1400s. 

Keep in mind that only one bifolio of the VMS was C14-dated to the early 1400s, and that is only a lower bound to the date of when the book was written.  It is quite possible that the Author used 50-year-old vellum that had been rejected by some scribe or scribal "factory" and was kept in their scrap bin for many decades.  Or that, in his old age, he used some cheap vellum that he had acquired when he was a student but ended up not using back then.  Or that he scavenged blank bifolios from cheap old books that he had no use for.

The Artist probably was a simpleton who could not tell a zodiac from a zombie, but the Author apparently had a good variety of "scientific" books, that he lent to the Artist for use as models.

All the best, --stolfi