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Beautiful Gibberish: Fake Arabic in Medieval and Renaissance Art: Media

Medieval and Renaissance artists admired Arabic script but couldn’t read it. So they improvised.

Images

Madonna and Child Enthroned
Madonna and Child Enthroned, tempera on panel by Gentile da Fabriano, c....
Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.255)