The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Sorry, but my initial message was clearly a response to

Well, sorry for the confusion.  Blame it on rhetorical questions with recursive "what if"s, replying to several people at the same time, etc...

My point in linking that was to show that a lack of a link between astrological/herbal/recipe sections is consistent with european manuscripts from the time. And therefore, a lack of a link between the sections is not indicative of a non-european origin.

Again, i did not claim that the absence of that visible connection is "indicative of a non-european origin".  It is just not indicative of a any particular origin, European or not.    

I would say that the structure of the sections in the VMS are quite reminiscent of some european manuscripts, including the one I linked.

The similarity is only that the VMS has separate sections for Herbal+Pharma, Zodiac, and "Recipes".  That is not specifically European.  

On the other hand, now that you mention it, how many European Medieval manuscripts have a section like Bio?  I know of the Balneis Puteolanum and its many copies; but is there any one with so many branching pipes and individual tubs  shaped like organs and pangolins and kidneys or whatever those VMS things are?

(I recall that, back in the mailing list days, it was "common knowledge" that anatomical examination of corpses was strictly forbidden by the Church, which explained a supposed absence of books on human anatomy.  That was even offered as an explanation for why the Author had to encrypt the bio section and disguise the illustrations as an ad for the MundusAquaticus amusement park to open soon.  Was any of that true?)

And the structure of the Starred Parags section is very similar to that of the Shennong Bencao -- not just visually or qualitatively, but quantitatively.

All the best, --stolfi