Background:

These liturgical prints are from an edition of the Missale Romanum (or Roman Missal) dating to the 1650s.

The Missale Romanum is the liturgical book containing the text used in the celebration of the Mass of the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church.  Included was the Sacramentary with the prayers, one or more books of Scriptural readings and the antiphons (responses, usually sung in Gregorian chant) to a psalm or some other part of the religious service.

The antiphon woodblocks presented on this page include a practice known as rubrication where a letter, word or section of the text is printed in red ink to highlight it.