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

[Jorge_Stolfi]

However bizarre and irregular the writing in the manuscript is, it appears to me made by someone who certainly was proficient with the quill.

Yes, sorry, that is what I meant by "not professional".  Someone who did a substantial amount of writing (with a quill -- what else?) on paper, maybe a bit on vellum, and thus had developed good quill-driving skills and a neat handwriting; but who had no experience writing books of commercial quality.  I thought someone like a starving student, a trader, an accountant, a notary public or lawyer in a small town, ....

[/quote]Someone proficient with the quill, but not a professional scribe, could just be the author.... is there any particular reason to believe that the author couldn't just write the manuscript with no external help?[/quote]

There are many possible reasons why the Author could have resorted to a scribe.  Like Marci by the time he sent the book to Kircher, his eyesight may have been so poor that he was no longer able to write himself.  His hands may have have not been steady enough.  Or he just may have had terrible handwriting.

There are several clues supporting the claim that the Scribe could not read the script. Like the mis-aligned lines of f34r.  Or the large number of "weirdo" glyphs that occur only once. 

[/quote]By the way, one of the reasons I'm a bit cautious about 5 different hands is that I would expect greater variability in the proficiency and in the sloppiness, while to me all of them appear to be roughly the same.[/quote]

Yes, I am not convinced about the five scribes either, for the same reason.

Judging by my school experience, in any random group of 5 people there will be one with significantly more beautiful and regular handwriting.

Same here as a teacher.  Only that I would use the words "less ugly and irregular" instead...

All the best, --stolfi