Liturgical miscellany featuring a Guidonian hand

The hand served as a striking visual aid for teaching, reflecting its role as a tool for scientific understanding and as a perceived bridge between the intellect and spirit during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As illustrated here, a choir director could point to different parts of the fingers or palm to indicate musical pitches and the direction of melodic lines. Known as the Guidonian hand, this system was used by monks and missionaries to teach sung liturgy before literacy was common.