Speech scroll

Developed independently on two continents, the device was in use by artists within Mesoamerican cultures from as early as 650 BC until after the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, and 13th and 14th European painters.

An early example is a Olmec ceramic cylinder seal dated to c. 650 BC, where two lines emit from a bird's mouth followed by glyphs proposed to be "3 Ajaw," a ruler's name.

In Mesoamerica, speech-scrolls are usually oriented upwards along the longest outer edge so that the central element (or "tongue") curves downward as it spirals.

[9] During the 14th century, quotations in banderoles increasingly allowed artists to include more complex ideas in their works, though for the moment usually in Latin, thus greatly restricting the audience that could follow them.

[10] In this context, medieval donor illustrations are of particular importance, as they recorded the names of the patrons as painted text and thus supplemented the purely pictorial information with readable content for the already literate urban mercantile elite.

The European speech scroll fell out of favor largely due to an increasing interest in realism in painting; the halo had a similar decline.