Exultet Roll

An Exultet roll is a long, wide illuminated scroll carrying the text and music of the Exultet, the liturgical chant sung at the Paschal Vigil. It was typically made of parchment in the format of a rotulus, with its text set in Beneventan script and its music notated in neumes, and its illustrations were often painted upside down relative to the text, so that as the officiant read from the scroll and unrolled it over the pulpit, the images appeared right side up to the congregation below. The form was peculiar to southern Italy, centered on the area around Benevento and Montecassino, and the surviving examples date from between the 10th and 13th centuries.