I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS

[JustAnotherTheory]

I am now convinced that the VMS is not a forgery but a honest transcription of a Chinese classic.

Out of curiosity, how would you reconcile the Chinese theory with the fact that the VMS Quire 13 (and other folios) contain very strong ressemblances to Mariano Taccola's De Ingeneis books III and IV, especially the original drawings therein such as the tubes, the bridge scene, the sun-face illustration, etc...

As far as we know, Taccola's sketchbook III-IV, of which to our best knowledge no copy has ever been made, was most probably in Siena for the majority of the 15th century. Nowhere near China.

Are you saying that some orientalist explorer or adventurer went to China, invented a totally new script, wrote 200+ pages of text and illustrations, and ALSO happened to be in possession of the exceedingly rare-to-come-by personal sketchbook of Taccola, so valuable that at some point it was even (alllegedly) intended to be given to the emperor Sigismund himself?