1. The Italian Renaissance
As the Gothic spirit reached its apex in the other areas of Western Europe, Humanist scholars in Italy were
slowly reviving the culture of antiquity. The Renaissance embrace of ancient Greek and Roman
culture spurred a creative wave through Italian art, architecture, literature as well as letterform design.
Classical art works were rediscovered and ancient treatises on science and mathematics made their way into
artists' studios. (Leonardo Da Vinci blended art and science—using the human figure as a means of
proportion, based upon the work of ancient Roman architect, Vitruvius, above.)
Renaissance architecture employed the ancient Greek emphasis on "symmetry, proportion, geometry and
the regularity of parts"
Scholar and architect Leon Battista Alberti (1522—1550) considered the circle and the square the most
perfect geometric forms and used them as the basis for all designs from architecture to alphabet. He revived
the Roman tradition of inscribing monumental letterforms onto building facades. His Temple Malatestiano,
1450, shown below.

2. A Handwriting Renaissance
• A Handwriting Renaissance
Literature and writing were additional areas of rediscovery. Ancient manuscripts were sought
throughout Europe for purchase or copied by literary agents, such as the famous Poggio Bracciolini
(1380 — 1450) an Italian humanist and calligrapher, (an example of his writing above) foremost
among scholars of the early Renaissance to rediscover lost, forgotten, or neglected classical Latin
manuscripts in the monastic libraries of Europe. Although Renaissance scholars thought the
documents were ancient, in many cases they were copying from manuscripts written during the
Carolingian period in Carolingian manuscript.
“Graphic Designers owe a great debt to the Humanists, for it was they who created the script that
became the model for small letters. The script came about through the Humanist passion for
seeking out and copying the ancient manuscripts of the classical authors they admired.
They were also attracted to the clear, open handwriting of the manuscripts they believed had been
written in Roman times. In actual fact, the manuscripts the Humanists admired were mostly from
the Carolingian period, and their script, which we call Humanistic, was derived from the Carolingian
Hand.”3

3. • The Lettera Antica
Humanists named the newly rediscovered letterforms Antica, for their supposedly ancient origins.
The same Renaissance analysis of form that was being applied to art and architecture was directed
towards letterform — resulting in a more mathematically perfect or rationalized letter.
Felice Feliciano, Verona. c.1460
An expert on stone lettering, he published the first geometric study of the Roman inscriptions in
1463. He employed a module of a circle enclosed by a square with two diagonal lines extending
from corner to corner to define letter proportion. His drawing from Alphabetum Romanum is
shown above or at GreenboatHouse Press in a modern reprint here.) In 1934 Monotype produced
an all cap tilting font, Felix Titling, based upon Feliciano's alphabet.
Note: Mathematical analysis would persist in later studies of letterform. As the Renaissance
influences moved northward, artist Albrecht Dürer applied mathematics to both Roman and Gothic
letters in his book, On the Just Shaping of Letters, 1535. (below) The entire text and images are
available online at this link.

4. Majuscules & Minuscules
"It has often been pointed out that the [Roman] capitals and the (Carolingian] minuscules were not
homogeneous elements, the capitals were unmistakably an incised letter style; the Carolingian was
strictly a pen design ...
"Of course the scribes noticed that the capitals and small letters did not fit together well so they
performed a styling job of adding serifs and finishing strokes in order to suit them to the capitals. By
the time the craft of printing was introduced to Italy, the Humanistic writing afforded a fully
developed basis for the type style we now call 'roman.'" 5
Niccolò de' Niccoli (1363-1437, Florence) An influential teacher of the Humanist rounded
letterform, Niccoli combined classical Roman capitals with the Carolingian minuscule to form a dual
alphabet. 4 He adapted the Carolingian script for faster everyday writing by sloping the letters a
little (the result of holding the pen at a more comfortable angle), and allowing some of them to join
up. His script, (shown below), as that of Bartolomeo Sanvito, was a forerunner of the italic type
metal type to follow.

5. Renaissance Writing Masters
• Calligraphy & Type Design
When type design and printing began in the mid-1400's it
was not the end of developments in writing. Scribes,
displaced by printing presses still worked as writing
teachers and published books to instruct their students in
formal and semi-formal hands. Literacy was growing and
writing was practiced by a larger non-secular audience.
Legal and commercial hands were developed for business
applications. A complete list of professional Italian
calligraphic writers between 1501 and 1700 is complied by
James Mosely at this link.

6. Renaissance Writing Masters

7. Pens Men in England
"Pens men" in England, untrusting of engraved
examples, relied heavily on direct observation of
original manuscripts. The first English writing manual,
A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of Hands, 1570 was a
translation of the Jean De Beauchesne's Le Thresor
d'Escripture (Paris, 1550). Included were examples of
gothic and secretary hands, as well as chancery,
italic.

8. Calligraphy's Influence on Type Design
in the 20th Century
• A large number of fine text faces were designed and produced around the
middle twentieth century, and the practice of calligraphy is crucial to all
but a few.
Spectrum in the Netherlands by Jan Van Krimpen, Palatino and Aldus
designed in Germany by Hermann Zapf, and Diotoma designed by
Gundren Von Hesse; Figural designed in Czechoslovakia by Oldrich
Menhart; Dante designed in Italy by Giovanni Marderesteig; Meridien,
designed in France by Adrian Frutiger; and Berling , designed in Sweden by
Karl-Erik Forsberg are all products of the 1940's and 1950s.
• Each of these type families is made for book work and inc eludes both a
roman and an italic. Not one of these italics could have been designed
without direct practice in writing the Renaissance italic hand. And not one
of the romans could have been designed without close study of
Renaissance roman which likewise owe their form to direct and daily
experience of writing with the broad pen. 7

10. The Mechanization of Writing
Moveable Type15th C.
Printing had been practiced in Korea, China and Japan for several centuries, and Europeans printed type with
carved wooden blocks for about 100 years before a modular moveable type system was developed in Europe
about 1450.
Was moveable type invented by Gutenberg or Dutch printer Laurens Janszoon Coster? Daniel
Berkeley Updike writes this opinion,
"Before Gutenberg's day, printing from moveable types was practiced by the Dutch, and there is, perhaps
reason to believe that a man named Coster was the inventor of the process ...there certainly existed in
Holland before Gutenberg's time, a series of books of primitive workmanship printed from type, and the
roughness of the typography of some later printers, like Caxton, is considered one proof that a group of
men were under the influence of this Dutch school of printing. It has always puzzled the casual student of
incunabula to account for the perfection of the books printed by Gutenberg; but if it be true that
Gutenberg did not originate printing from moveable types, but simply improved the the whole practice of
making them, then we can see that the early and crude typography of Holland were merely the sub
structure on which Gutenberg so splendidly built."
It is believed that Gutenberg learned his metal smithing skills while working with his father at a mint. Whatever
the source, Gutenberg was knowledgeable in metal carving and casting, which combined with his penchant for
intention, spawned a successful method of "mechanical writing."

11. Gutenberg 1398-1468

12. Gutenberg's System of Casting Individual
Metal Type
1. Carve a letter on the end of a steel bar, the punch. In the case of
Gutenberg the letter would be a black letter style, not the roman
shown in the above example.
2. That letterform is struck into a softer metal bar made of copper,
to create a matrix. At this point the letter is right reading.
3. The matrix is placed into a type mold. Molten metal is poured
into the opening to fill the mold to produce a wrong reading letter.

13. 4. The type caster shakes the mold to avoid air pockets
and the letterform is almost instantly ready to remove.
It is estimated that about 4.000 individual letters could
be produced per day.
5. As a final step the cast letterform is released from
the mold, cleaned of superfluous metal appendages
and leveled for use.
The wrong reading letter prints as a right reading final.

14. Gutenberg's BibleGutenberg's 42-Line Bible Circa 1455
Research indicates, in an attempt to pay off his business debts, Gutenberg printed
papal indulgences (written dispensation for sins) sold by the church. His greatest
work, the 42-line bible, is named after the number of lines per column.
The variations on the same letter might not be to mimic handwriting but instead
were the result of varying skills of the type casters.
"Into such a mold hot metal was poured, and the typecaster then gave it a quick
shake, which forced the metal into all the crannies of the matrix. By practice it
became apparent that some letters needed a different sort of motion, and were
more difficult to make than others, so I suppose that the variations just spoken
between the different impressions of the same letter in early fonts may be
attributable to the varying skill of the individual workman... mention is made of
uncouth movements and swaying figures of gray-haired typecasters, who appear as if
demented to anyone who did not know what they were about."

16. After final dressing the cast letters were distributed to storage bins. From there they were picked
and arranged on a device called a composing stick. (shown above). Each stick was filled and
transferred to a tray on a composing table (below).
The entire page form was transferred to the press bed, where it was inked and readied for the
paper contact.
Despite attempts to keep the process secret, before long there were hundreds of presses operating
throughout Germany and Italy.