Gradual
A Gradual is a liturgical choir book of chant texts, made around 1270, probably in Italy, for use in church services. Its two pictures show a historiated initial with two robed figures in gold and blue, and a dense crowd of gold-haloed faces packed into a rounded frame, both painted on vellum with red staff lines beside the text. A designer could take the flat gold grounds, the patterned haloes, and the tight repetition of faces as a model for ornamental medieval framing.
