It's clear that he knew a good deal about VD, but then he obviously knew a good deal about everything! He gives rather detailed descriptions of various towns in Italy where, to the best of scholarly knowledge, he had never traveled, just for instance. Of course, to tell the truth, this is sometimes used as fodder for the "Someone else must have written Shakepeare" crowd.

Even so, the opening post in this thread is nothing but speculation for the sake of titillation, say I. "Might have", "possibly knew", "perhaps from personal knowledge", and the like.

Dave Oesterreich