#bastarda

[cuties-in-codices]

fishing for souls

detail from a copy of "le pèlerinage de la vie humaine" by guillaume de deguileville, illuminated by the maître d'antoine rolin, hainaut, late 15th/early 16th c.

source: Genève, Bibl. de Genève, Ms. fr. 182, fol. 162v

[ninjasmudge]

the arrogance on display when a little dessert has cooking instructions that tell you to put the whole oven on just for one small roll. who do you think you are youre going in the microwave like everything else

[medeaft]

I'm alive 2026 Watercolour and ink on paper

I'm trying to come back to tumblr. It's difficult.

The picture is not related to my own being alive, that's coincidental; I just intend to upload some of the things I made in that time (not all, but some), and this is one of those. I actually developed a bastarda handwriting for the sake of this picture, because my ordinary gothic handwriting is textualis, but that didn't suit the picture, it needed something softer and livelier.

[nomitigada]

Bastarda & João de Sousa // Fado

2021, Audio Cave

[ituoiocchiazzurrocielo]

quando vi sentite una nullità e avete crisi d’autostima

ricordatevi sempre che c’è una coppia che se solo sente il vostro nome, litiga

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

CURSIVE GOTHIC AND EARLY ENGLISH TYPEFACES

Among the popular reading hands for English manuscripts in the 14th and 15th centuries were cursive Gothic scripts, most of which may be classified as Bastarda (or in French lettre bâtard), Anglicana, or a hybrid Bastarda Anglicana, all of which have a rounded cursive quality with extended loops and flourishes. These qualities are especially evident in our facsimiles of the early 15th-century Ellesmere Chaucer (first three images) and The Life of Saint Edmund, King & Martyr from 1433/34 (next three images). These book scripts developed from English correspondence hands of the 12th century and by the late 13th century had become regularized and widely-used book hands.

It was natural for England’s first printer and typographer William Caxton to develop and use these scripts as models for his first typefaces. An English merchant on the continent, Caxton likely picked up his printing skills in Cologne and produced the first printed book in English in Bruges, both regions having Bastarda traditions themselves. That first book, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, was printed in 1473 in a Bastarda-style typeface. When Caxton moved to Westminster, England, he brought Bastarda typefaces with him, probably designed by Johann Veldener, that were based on the sumptuous Burgundian scripts he encountered in his association with Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy. These types can be seen in our single leaf from Caxton’s printing of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the first book book printed in England in 1476, and in our facsimile of Caxton’s 1483 The Game of Chess (below the Saint Edmund images).

By 1490, Caxton had acquired a more round and open typeface, a Gothic face originally used by the Parisian printer Antoine Verard and later favored by Caxton’s successor, Wynkyn de Worde. This type style is apparent in the next image from our facsimile edition of Wynkyn’s 1512 London printing of The History of Helyas Knight of the Swan. It was this style of Gothic typeface that came to dominate English printing through much of the 16th century, as can be seen in the last image from our 1561 printing of The Woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer printed in London by John Kyngston. As we noted in our post on Gothic typefaces, it was not until the final decades of the 16th century that England finally relinquished Gothic types for the rounded humanist typefaces prevalent in most of western and southern Europe. Still, because of the extraordinary government control over all aspects of the English printing industry until the 1690s, a truly well-designed, national English typeface would not emerge until William Caslon’s designs in the 1730s.

Works from our collection used in this post, from top to bottom:

The Ellesmere Chaucer Reproduced in Facsimile. Manchester: University of Manchester, 1911. Two volumes.

The Life of St Edmund, King and Martyr: The Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund in MS Harley 2278 by John Lydgate.  London: Folio Society, 2004.  Limited edition of 1010 copies.

Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Westminster: William Caxton, 1476.  One leaf containing lines 1202-1258 of the Wife of Bath's Tale.

The Game of Chess by Jacobus de Cessolis, translated and printed by William Caxton, c. 1483. London: Scolar Press, 1976. Limited edition of 500 copies.

The History of Helyas Knight of the Swan translated by Robert Copland from the French version published in Paris in 1504. A literal reprint in the types of Wynkin de Worde after the unique copy printed by him upon parchment in London MCCCCCXII. New York: The Grolier Club, 1901. Limited edition of 325 copies on Whatman paper. Gift of Jerry Buff.

The Woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer newlie printed, with diuers addicions, which were never in printed before with the Siege and destruccion of the worthy citee of Thebes compiled by Jhon Lidgate. Second issue. London: printed by Jhon Kyngston, for Jhon Wigh, 1561.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts. 

[il-nostro-amore-segreto]

Certe volte la vita è proprio una bastarda senza compassione

[amosoloituoiocchi]

Sempre di testa mia.🥀