illustration: facsimile of R-type from de universo by hrabanus maurus, printed by adolf rusch, strasburg, 1465? [victor scholderer, ‘Adolf Rusch and the Earliest Roman Types’, The Library, vol. s4-XX, 1939, fig. 1]. i have added the pink screen over the R. the image is from pdf—i believe the original was collotype: there is a copy of the book in london & i should replace the illustration with a photo from the book, when it is again convenient to visit libraries.
the printers’ term «roman» came into the trade via france: «… the name probably originated from the fact that the first roman used in France, that of the Sorbonne press of 1470, was copied from the fount of Schweynheym and Pannartz [first shown in cicero, Epistolae ad familiares] used in Rome from 1467.» [a.f. johnson, Type Designs, grafton & co., london, 1959, p37]. however, the london bibliographers described this face as only almost-roman: there was much controversy as to what exactly constituted pure roman as differentiated from the archetype, humanistic script; the lower-case was not yet brought fully into conformity with the capitals—i.e. not uniformly serifed & bracketed. stanley morison in ‘EarlyHumanistic Script and the First Roman Type’ [The Library, vol. s4-XXIV, 1943, p2] gives thorough argument as to why this face of schweynheym and pannartz should receive the accolade—in any event, the fount of schweynheym & pannartz engendered the term.
there was, however, one «roman» a little earlier: «It has hitherto been accepted that the earliest known roman type is a fount of about 103 mm. [20 lines*] used at Strasburg by an anonymous printer long known only as the R-printer, from the peculiar form of that majuscule in the fount in question [1st illustration], until he was identified beyond all reasonable doubt by Dziatzko as Adolf Rusch, the son-in-law of Mentelin [johannes mentelin, first printer of strasburg]. In all probability the R, which only needs the addition of a short cross-stroke to pass muster as the monogram AR, was intended as a sort of signature of his own initials. None of the books in the R-type contain a colophon or date of any kind, nor has any one been able to discover constant variants in the use of the fount, so that our chief means of arriving at the approximate time of their completion are manuscript entries by rubricators or owners in particular copies.» [op. cit., scholderer, p43].
harry cater’s take:
«The first typeface to be fully Roman is, i think, the one that the R-Printer was using in Strasburg by 1467. It has classical capitals of rather a rough kind and the characters of the lower case have been given serifs to match them and are widened and rounded so that their curves are consistent with those of the capitals. Apart from the curious R it makes a legible fount not without symmetry and harmony.
I quote the date 1467 as the latest by which the R-Printer’s Roman fount was in use, the date accepted by Dr. Scholderer. It is four or five years earlier than any other of the kind in Germany and more fully developed than its immediate successors. Its existence at so early a time cannot be fully explained even by its cutter being in touch with Italian printers, whose designs had not then reached such a pitch or romanization.» [A View of Early Typography, at the clarendon press, oxford, 1969, p47].
that rusch was progenitor of early italian cuts of roman, now known as venetian, is an interesting hypothesis: «We also know that Rusch, in addition to being a printer, bookseller, and paper-dealer, was something of a humanist and that his travels took him into Italy at least once. Could it have been that Rusch, on the occasion of a visit to Venice, talked over with John and Vindelin [johann & wendelin de speier, german printers who cut the first roman at venice] the project of a press catering mainly for the new learning, instructed them in its management, pointed out to them the kind of letter most likely to attract scholarly readers, and arranged to supply them with skilled labour from home for a start?» [op. cit., scholderer, p46].
