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".
Iron gall ink
The earliest recipes for oak gall ink come from Pliny the Elder, and are vague at best. Many famous and important manuscripts have been written using ferrous oak gall ink, including the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest, most complete Bible currently known to exist, thought to be written in the middle of the fourth century. Due to the ease of making iron gall ink and its quality of permanence and water resistance this ink became the favored one for scribes in the European corridor as well as around the Mediterranean Sea. Surviving manuscripts from the Middle Ages as well as the Renaissance bear this out as the vast majority are written using iron gall ink, the balance being written using lamp black or carbon black inks. Many drawings by Leonardo da Vinci were made with iron gall ink. Laws were enacted in Great Britain and France specifying the content of iron gall ink for all royal and legal records to ensure permanence in this time period as well.