Was the VMS artist a fan of Michael Scot?

[Pierre Dumont Himself]

Keep in mind that the printing press meant a huge shift in book culture and was one of the most transformative events in human history. Menocchio was tried 150 years after the VM was written. In between them is the introduction of movable print to Europe and the whole incunabula period. So we're already well beyond the early adopters now and moving towards a situation that's much more recognizable by today's standards.

I can't dispute the influence of the printing press, but we know that parchment had already become affordable and literacy was widespread. Moreover, the VM and these other works were not meant for public consumption, so it is questionable whether they were part of the "book culture". The Ottoman Empire had very little printing, but the increase in wealth and foreign connections alone led to the appearance of private literature among the lower-middle class. Was there nothing similar in 15th-century Italy? We already know that monks had been producing such works for hundreds of years.

[img]Although, do we know for certain that they made it themselves? Did parchment makers have different qualities available?[/img]
Isn't this what Lisa Fagin Davis has been arguing?