The original purpose of the album is the subject of controversy. Originally it was thought to have served as a kind of training manual for practicing architects. This is rejected by most current researchers, because Villard's drawings seem fundamentally ill-suited to such a purpose, though it has been argued that the drawings were deliberately simplistic and abstracted to serve as coded mnemonic devices for architects who were initiated into the relevant oral tradition.[6] Nevertheless, most scholars today believe it more likely served as a pattern or model book, containing designs for manuscript illumination or metalwork.[2]