![]() The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script. Early Italian Writing-Books: Renaissance to Baroque. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Selected Essays on the History of Letter-Forms in Manuscript and Print. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. “Humanism in Script and Print in the Fifteenth Century.” The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. For further reading, visit New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) institutions browse their online catalog, Arcade and/or see the materials and subjects referenced below.Īudrey Lorberfeld, Reference Associate, Frick Art Reference Libraryĭavies, Martin. In closing, while younger generations might guffaw at my grandmother’s hand-written holiday cards and serpentine notes, her use of a sloping, tight script pays silent homage to a long love affair between mankind and the pursuit of knowledge.Īll of the books referenced in this post are available for consultation at the Frick Art Reference Library or openly-available online through Google Books. In a series of texts that will be instantly recognizable to Classicists everywhere, one can happily observe the remnants of Manutius’s influence in the form of the beloved Loeb Classical Library. It should come as no surprise, then, that iterations of Manutius’s octavos are still being produced today. Most important in the context of italic’s history, in 1501, Manutius printed his first octavo text in italic typeface, which thenceforth became “the chief means by which classical literature was spread through Europe” ( Davies, 53-60). His octavo texts were diminutive, which, above all else, created a market for the mobile book. Manutius’s famous layout, the “ octavo,” became wildly popular as a way to inexpensively disseminate Classical literature. Consequently, book printers, like Manutius, were able to create new formats to meet the changing demand. Around the 1460s, the technology of the Gutenberg printing press arrived in Italy and with it came mass availability of inexpensive and standardized books. This, in turn, created a massive, networked book trade. First, they allowed booksellers, such as Bisticci, to copy items ahead of demand. The speed and profitability of italic completely revolutionized Italy’s publishing industry. Notable humanist cartolai, or stationers, such as Vespasiano da Bisticci, and printers, such as Aldus Manutius, capitalized on these attributes and employed italic in the books they distributed to Italy’s scholars ( Morison, 1990, 41). Italic’s tilt was its claim to fame, as it was chiefly responsible for its cost-efficiency as copyists were able to fit more words on fewer pages, the most expensive materials in book production, vellum and/or paper, were reduced. ![]()
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