Depends how you measure "important".
By some mesures it is, by others it isn't, and by others we don't know.
Arguments in favor may be:
- It draws a lot of interest from many people. Few manuscripts are wider known. (Granted, most people probably don't know any manuscript at all). I am aware that equating popular with important is an anti-elitist view which may not agree with all.
- As far as we know, it is an artifact with many unique properties. This makes it more important than the umpteenth Speculum Humanae Salvationis for example, of which hundreds exist. The last tree of an ugly heirloom apple variety is more important than one tree of a high-end, common variety.
Arguments against it being important:
- As far as we know, it doesn't teach us anything; we can't use it. We can't even learn much about history or manuscript traditions from it, because we can't connect it to "the known".
Arguments why we don't know if it's important:
- We don't know what it encodes. If it (its text and/or images) is ever understood, it may teach us something no other manuscript contains. It may illuminate an obscure culture or school of thought. It may fill in gaps in our knowledge of herbal remedies. It may contain a lost work of some known author.
What makes
any manuscript important though? Do we only count things like the Magna Carta? The oldest manuscripts of the Bible? Manuscripts with exceptional illuminations?