Islamic art
Calligraphic design is omnipresent in Islamic art, where, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, religious exhortations, including Qur'anic verses, may be included in secular objects, especially coins, tiles and metalwork, and most painted miniatures include some script, as do many buildings. Use of Islamic calligraphy in architecture extended significantly outside of Islamic territories; one notable example is the use of Chinese calligraphy of Arabic verses from the Qur'an in the Great Mosque of Xi'an. Other inscriptions include verses of poetry, and inscriptions recording ownership or donation. Two of the main scripts involved are the symbolic "kufic" and "naskh" scripts, which can be found adorning and enhancing the visual appeal of the walls and domes of buildings, the sides of minbars, and metalwork. Islamic calligraphy in the form of painting or sculptures are sometimes referred to as "quranic art".
Lipogram
Lasus of Hermione, who lived during the second half of the sixth century BCE, is the most ancient author of a lipogram. This makes the lipogram, according to Quintus Curtius Rufus, "the most ancient systematic artifice of Western literature". Lasus did not like the sigma, and excluded it from one of his poems, entitled "Ode to the Centaurs," of which nothing remains; as well as a "Hymn to Demeter", of which the first verse remains: