Chronological Path Stability/Uncertainty Analysis

[Mauro]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. It was intended as a rough guess, not a robust statistical estimate.

I had missed that part in your post, sorry. Yes, your minimum estimated time (200 days) is probably reasonable. The absolute minimum could (improbably) go even lower, say 116 days at 1 bifolio/day, 7 days a week, but I see it more probable that the true time could instead be higher. A 'normal' person would have had other things to do beyond writing the VMS, so I think 200 days could easily become 400 or even 800. And maybe the work went on intermittently (interest, or money, or available spare time can ebb and flow, and the XVth century was a pretty turbulent time iirc), so it could have taken 10 or more years. Hard to say.

A complicating factor is 'who' we are talking about. Someone surely draw the illustrations, apparently before the text was written (btw I'm not sure if your estimate includes the time to make the illustrations or if it's only for the text). Maybe the same person as the scribe, or maybe not, and anyway there is evidence (not accepted by everybody) pointing to up to 5 scribes, so this complicates things too. If the VMS was first drafted and then copied to vellum (which is plausible and even probable, but not sure) that would add work and possibly people (the 'composer').


Edit: I see now You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. post. I agree with all what you say (I independently cautioned against simplifying assumptions on 'who' made the VMS before reading your post). Just, I'm not so sure about anything as you are. Ie. Paper-to-Vellum is for me (quote from paragraph above) "plausible and even probable", say 90% probable, or even 95%, but I can't honestly completely discard Brain-to-Vellum. Ur-books? That may well be, or maybe not. I don't dare go beyond "I don't know" in this case.