A speech scroll, also called a banderole or phylactery in art history, is an illustrative device denoting speech, song, or, in rarer cases, other types of sound.
Developed independently on two continents, the device was in use by European painters during the Medieval and Renaissance periods as well as by artists within Mesoamerican cultures from as early as 650 BC until after the 16th century Spanish conquest.
While European speech scrolls were drawn as if they were an actual unfurled scroll, Mesoamerican speech scrolls are merely scroll-shaped, looking much like a question mark.
Read more about Speech Scroll: Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, European Banderoles, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words speech and/or scroll:
“As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“I am the scroll of the poet behind which samurai swords are being sharpened.”
—Lester Cole, U.S. screenwriter, Nathaniel Curtis, and Frank Lloyd. Prince Tatsugi (Frank Puglia)