Prior to 1425 there is no known evidence of a special symbol being used for percentage. The Italian term "per cento", "for a hundred", was used as well as several different abbreviations (e.g. "per 100", "p 100", "p cento", etc.). Examples of this can be seen in the 1339 arithmetic text (author unknown) depicted below. The letter p with its descender crossed by a horizontal or diagonal strike (ꝑ in Unicode) conventionally stood for per, por, par, or pur in Medieval and Renaissance palaeography.