typographical enthusiasms

direct [not reflected]

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well appointed garamond

sort display in Garamond | Die zeitlos schöne Schrift, specimen issued by schriftgiesserei d stempel ag [frankfurt a.m., n.d. but circa late 1920s]: their «garamond» revival of 1924. excellent ligature complement for both roman & italic, including ſ (long-s) & its mates, with canonical ligatures «st» & «ct»; & german «ch» & «ck» logotypes—requisite for fine german setting.

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cancellaresca testeggiata

first page of a letter from gianfranceso cresci to cardinal guglielmo sirleto; written by gianfrancesco cresci, dated from milan 6 august 1572 [Vat. Lat. 6185, f. 134]. collotype facsimile in Signature 5 [london, 1948, before p7].

«Cresci belonged to the age of the Baroque, and his script carries its characteristic impress. The tiny point, which initiates a kerned ascender, had by Cresci’s time been magnified to the dimensions of a crowning feature, soon to become standard, well into the seventeenth century, as cancellaresca testeggiata.» [james wardrop, The Script of Humanism [clarendon press, oxford, 1963, p48.]

«…by the middle of the 16th century a shift of style was in progress, involving the use of a thinner more flexible pen to produce a smoother-flowing, elliptically-curved script with club shaped ascenders, the cancellaresca testeggiata, which is, through it adoption by the French calligraphers Materot and Barbedor, the ancestor of the English round hand.» [james mosley, «Trajan Revived», Alphabet 1964, james moran ltd, london, p21.]

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set in monotype garamont italic—vide ‹harmony›. headband of monotype 218—vide ‹a london ornament›.

letterpress on okawara machinemade.

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copy from the section on «Metaphor» in The King’s English [h.w. fowler & f.g. fowler, at the clarendon press, oxford, 1931, p210]. presumably, for think the fowlers allude to the latin infinitive putare.

set in monotype dante—vide ‹dante roman› & ‹bembismo 2›.

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warde’s arrighi

«Lodovico degli Arrighi da Vicenza [more commonly known as ludovico vicentino] was employed at Rome as ‘scrittore de’ brevi apostolici’ and as a writing master he was the first to print specimens of his hand»;¹ «no details are known as to the date upon which he entered this post»; ² «The writer of apostolic briefs in 1522 had by 1524 become printer and publisher [in rome] to a gifted group of humanists and writers.»³ arrighi had two italic founts based on his calligraphic models cut for his printing/publishing venture at rome:  the first (≅16pt), modelled on arrighi’s cancelleresca corisvo, having kerned projectors with pear-shaped terminals & upright roman capitals «is assumed to have been cut for Arrighi by his partner Lautizio Perugino (who is generally equated with Lautizio Bartolomeo dei Rotelli, the goldsmith praised by Cellini). It includes a large number of variant sorts, including a number devised by Arrighi’s patron Giangiorgio Trissino as part of his phonetic spelling reform.»⁴ [4th image] «He [arrighi] was first to found those free letters which we know as ‘swash capitals’».⁵ «…poor sorts were to some extent replaced [presumably by lautizio] during the nine or ten months during which the type was used.» & it is characterized by «predominance of cursive g».⁶ The last book containing the name of lautizio perugino was published in april of 1525.  «The second type [slightly larger than the first] is altogether different. If the first is what one might expect from a goldsmith instructed by a calligrapher, elegant in mass but irregular and uncomprehending in detail, the second is a thoroughly professional design, with a sharper angle of stress and serifed ascenders and descenders (including long s and f).» & is characterized by «more frequent antica g».⁷ this 2nd fount appears in two states/versions spanning 1526–7; the cutter remains unknown.

in 1925 frederic warde organized a revival of the lautizio fount—he called it «arrighi». a 2nd version having serifed ascenders (presumably modeled on those of arrighi’s 2nd fount) he came to call «vicenza». he also sorted six ornaments, these not from arrighi’s oeuvre. punches were engraved for warde by charles plumet of g&h plumet, paris; with matrices struck & founts cast by p. ribadeau-dumas, also of paris . the arrighi types were first used by warde & stanley morison in a private printing of selected robert bridges’ poems.⁸ after which warde took founts to switzerland for the printing of The Calligraphic Models of Ludovico Degli Arrighi [1st image shows vicenza, 2nd arrighi].⁹ warde set one further edition in the vicenza version & later sold arrighi: the material—punches, matrices, types, along with documentation—was acquired in 1934 by henry watson kent of the metropolitan museum of art for use at their museum press.¹⁰  much of the history of warde’s arrighi is recorded by will carter in his «Typographical Note» appended to a poem printed by will & sebastien carter [3rd image] at their rampant lions press:¹¹ the book was set in a last casting of vicenza (matrices borrowed from the metropolitan museum of art & cast at oxford university press, 1962). confusion still exists as to the originator of the idea for the arrighi revival, but, given morison’s copious research into the origins of italic type at the time, i must agree with carter’s opinion «that the type is plainly another, little-known triumph of Stanley Morison’s, for I am convinced that it was he and not Warde who was the moving force behind the whole project.»¹²  the final journey leg of warde’s arrighi is given in the comprehensive account by herbert h. johnson,¹³ who received the donation of the arrighi material that now reposes in the cary collection at rochester institute of technology. johnson takes the view opposite to carter: he is unsympathetic to morison—arrighi was warde’s alone.

¹ stanley morison, Four Centuries of Fine Printing, ernest benn, london, p27.  ²The Calligraphic Models of Ludovico Degli Arrighi, privately printed for frederic warde, paris, 1926], p x. introduction by stanley morison. ³ stanley morison, Early Italian Writing-Books, david r. godine, boston, 1990, p56. ⁴ ibid., p165. ⁵Calligraphic Models, op. cit., p xvi. ⁶ morison, Italian Writing-Books, op. cit., p166. ⁷  ibid. ⁸  The Tapestry, privately printed, london, 1925. ⁹ Calligraphic Models, op. cit.  ibid., p xiv. ¹⁰ c.a. trypanis, The Elegies of a Glass Adonis, chilmark press, new york, 1967, p24. ¹¹  ibid., p23–31. ¹²  ibid., p31. ¹³ herbert h. johnson, «Notes on Frederic Warde and the True Story of HIs Arrighi Type», Fine Print, vol xii, no. 3, 1986.

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early woodcut print

william blades tells us: «Typography, or the art of combining separate letters and taking from them an impression, was a growth of the fifteenth century.» [The Pentateuch of Printing, elliot stock, london, 1891, p4.] blades’ definition still apt in the age of digital typography. «Printing from engraved blocks of wood [xylography] or soft metal was practised [in europe] in the fourteenth century, when rude figures of the Virgin and other saints, often coarsely coloured by hand, made their appearance.» [ibid. p6.] «The next step was the making of that interesting class of books called ‘Block-books’.» [ibid. p7.] blades’ analysis is cogent: these early engraved blocks, the cutting away of sections for recombination into new compositions, & development of suitable relief-printing inks likely inspired gutenberg & certainly engendered the typographic art.

the image is a st. christopher woodcut print from 1423: earliest datable european example (in blades’ time). [ibid., frontispiece.]

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harmony

harmonious of letter & ornament. copy set in garamont italic [lanston monotype 2481], frederic goudy’s adaptation of the «caractères de l'université» italic engraved by jean jannon in sedan, 1621—high quality engravings after the style of renaissance italics by robert granjon. headband arabesque composition of monotype’s recutting [english monotype 230-1] of a fleuron pair reliably attributed to robert granjon, circa 1557; vervliet names the exemplars «Granjon’s two-piece combinable flower on Small Pica» [hendrik d.l. vervliet, Granjon’s Flowers, oak knoll press, new castle (de), 2016, p48].

letterpress on kitakata.

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george w. jones 2

opening & laid-in note from the luxurious specimen of linotype granjon, Robert Granjon: Sixteenth Century Type Founder and Printer [mergenthaler linotype, co., brooklyn, 1931], printed by george w. jones [at the sign of the dolphin in gough square, london england].

linotype granjon is linotype’s 1924 «garamond» revival, adapted by george w. jones. a reviewer writes: «The fourteen-point, being nearest in size to the face which served as a model (a roman used by Jean Poupy in Borchier’s Historia Ecclesiastica, Paris 1582), is the most successful … There is an unpretentious italic with rather unhappy swash capitals, and several poorly designed lower-case characters.» [The Fleuron vol. v, cup, 1926, p.195.] pity we are not given the model for the italic.

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bounded in a nutshell

some dialogue from shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, act 2, scene 2. this setting not intended for direction of players, but as display. lines set in monotype garamond italic. ſ (long-s) & its mates are set for period flavor. personae set in digital reissue of linotype garamond no. 3.  garamond no. 3 was linotype’s 1936 recutting of the «garamond» issued by american type founders corporation (atf) in 1917, morris fuller benton’s adaptation of the caractères de l'université held at the imprimerie natioanale. the original material had long since been attributed to claude garamont († 1561): it was, however, revealed in a paper by paul beaujon [beatrice warde] that the caractères de l'université were not the work of claude garamont, but later, high-quality engravings, after the style of garamont, by jean jannon of sedan, 1621. [‘The Garamond Type, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Sources Considered’, The Fleuron: A Journal of Typography, no. 5, cambridge university press, 1926].

for details of the frame composition arabesque units vide ‹a granjon arabesque›.

for more about beatrice warde vide ‹belle sauvage›.

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george w. jones

three pages from a pretty piece of ephemera: programme printed by george w. jones—intaglio cover, title page, menu.* jones was consultant to the british branch of mergenthaler linotype & consequently expert in obtaining excellent composition from the machine—not an easy thing, especially with italic. i expected to discover that this programme was set on a linotype; however the linotype recutting of atf garamond, called garamond no.3 [vide ‹bounded in a nutshell›], was not issued until 1936: therefore the programme must have been handset throughout in atf garamond, atf’s «garamond» revival that issued in 1917.

* Printed by Bro. George W. Jones at The Sign of the Dolphin in Gough Square | Fleet Street, London, E. C. 4

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happy lupercalia!

image abstracted from a photo of the sculpture Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros [collection of greece’s national archeological museum]. setting in frutiger’s linotype herculaneum—vide ‹punic curse›.

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cover vignette abstracted from Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan [1585] by hendrik goltzius—another version.

greeting set in the goudy garamont italic—vide ‹harmony›. tailpiece of fleuron pair [lanston monotype 294-5]—with whom these cuts originate, no clue.

cover digital [toner] & greeting letterpress on johannot.

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we may wish to know by whom it had been said, but apt dictum from alfred forbes johnson. his text continues: «This may very well be done in the case of Petrarch in the sixteenth century, of whom there were scores of editions.» [Periods of Typography | The Italian Sixteenth Century, ernest benn, london, 1926, p7.]

set in bembo italic—vide ‹tagliente italic›.

letterpress on johannot.

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otto jespersen’s words from his essay «On Some Disputed Points in English Grammar» in S.P.E. Tract No. XXV [oxford, 1926, p143]. set in digital reissue of ‹gills’s joanna›.

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o lovely hand

sonnet clxvi [francesco petrarca, Sonetti e Canzoni]. set in digital reissue of monotype centaur italic, also called arrighi [english monotype 252]. caps are upright roman, fitted from monotype bembo—vide ‹bembismo›.  monotype arrighi «was cut from the drawings made by Frederic Warde at the request of Bruce Rogers»: companion italic to roger’s centaur roman; cut for monotype composition in 1929. [stanley morison, A Tally of Types, cup, 1973, p43]. warde’s arrighi types were a proprietary revival of a renaissance italic: he adapted the original design—increasing x-height, adjusting projectors—to line & harmonize with roger’s centaur. «In the Monotype cutting the capitals are inclined [drawings by warde], whereas in the original the capitals are upright, as the convention had required before the middle of the sixteenth century.» [ibid.]

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happy b’day wolfgang!

born this day [27 january] 1756.

three stanzas from ‹Non più andrai›, aria from mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro [k492]; libretto by lorenzo da ponte.

set in fournier italic.

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humanist eye strain

in a letter to boccaccio, petrarch writes of a copy of his epistles in preparation: «…litera, ‘quasi legitera’ dicta sit—sed alia quadam castigata et clara seque ultro oculis ingerente, in qua nichil orthographum, nichil omnino grammatice artis omissis dicas.» [Epist. fam. XXIII, 19, 8 (1366)].

set in garamont italic [lanston monotype 2481]—vide ‹harmony›. the tree is a monotype cast cut [lanston monotype 237X], apparently copied from an atf cut [A159].

letterpress on goyu.