A REASSESSMENT OF EARLY RENAISSANCE INSCRIPTIONAL LETTERS
by
Gerald Evans
B.A. , The University of Houston, 1971
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Department of Fine Arts)
We accept this thesis as conforming
to the required standard
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
November 1980
(c) Gerald Evans, 1980 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study.
I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission.
Arts Departmenr> t ofr Fine
The University of British Columbia
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15 October 1980 ii
ABSTRACT
The early inscriptional display letters which were the immediate successors of the Italian Gothic Uncialesque of the fourteenth century were the so-called lettere antiche of the fifteenth century. Very similar to the letters which today are called sans serif, the lettere antiche were not used for all purposes, but only on monuments having antique associa• tions. They were employed by the renowned artists of the early Renaissance for a period of some seventy years (1400-1470) until they were supplanted by the so-called neo-Trajanic letters, display letters of exceptional beauty and grace which resembled quite faithfully the original Trajanic letters of the Roman Empire. Neo-Trajanic letters remained canonic for some three centuries until, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, letters of the sans serif variety reappeared and have remained quite popular and widely used to this day.
Early inscriptionals were viewed by nineteenth and early twentieth century art historians and palaeographers as transitional between the
Gothic Uncialesque and the neo-Trajanic letters. They were thought to be experimental efforts at achieving an authentically antique style and therefore only marginally antique. That opinion was reinforced by a seeming lack of stylistic continuity among the lettere antiche. After the mid- twentieth century, however, art historians began to question the generally negative appraisal that early inscriptionals had hitherto received. In reappraising the lettere antiche, however, these modern critics were not systematic enough to provide an adequate explanation either of the subtlety of the assumptions that supported the traditional view of the early iii
inscriptionals or of the historical and calligraphic significance of the lettere antiche.
The objective of this thesis is twofold: to establish first that the lettere antiche are genuinely antique, where antiqueness is stylistically conceived; second, that they express a stylistic continuity that reveals the conscious calligraphic intention of the early Renaissance artists. In short, I intend to question the negative appraisal that early inscriptionals have received in the past by challenging the assumptions that supported that appraisal. In order to facilitate an understanding of the misinter• pretations of the inscriptional evidence implicit in the traditional view, it will be necessary to provide a comprehensive view of epigraphy in the early Renaissance. To accomplish these ends, I have adopted the following structure for my thesis.
The Introduction and Chapter I will give an overview of the general problem and of the historical process by which the transition from the
Gothic Uncialesque to the Trajanic letters was made. From this it will also become clear why critical opinion was led to a negative appraisal of the lettere antiche.
Chapter II delineates the views of the two modern critics most responsible for the contemporary reassessment of the lettere antiche, giving the substance of these views and evaluating them.
Chapter III introduces a method of stylistically determining the
'antiqueness' or 'gothicness' of a script independent of its authenticity as a known period style. By that method the lettere antiche are then evaluated and found to be genuinely antique.
Chapter IV sets forth a neutral system of analysis, employing an objective palaeographic methodology, by which early inscriptionals may be iv
analyzed and classified in terms of their qualities, and not in terms of their departure from or adherence to a norm.
Drawing on the conclusions of Chapter III, and employing the method• ology introduced in Chapter IV, Chapter V concludes the argument of this thesis with a reclassification of early inscriptionals by which valid lines of stylistic continuity may be demonstrated.
In the Conclusion of the thesis, I apply the pattern of stylistic continuity which emerged from the classification of early inscriptionals in Chapter V to reveal significant variations in the manner of letter execution from the beginning to the end of the seventy year period under consideration. These variations disclose the real nature of the experi• mentation which can be said to have characterized the efforts of early
Renaissance calligraphers. V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements xiii
I. Introduction 1
II. Chapter One: Humanist Lettering vs. Scriptura Monumentalis . 5
III. Chapter Two: Modern Art Historical Appraisal of Early Inscriptionals 18
IV. Chapter Three: A Stylistic Re-evaluation of the Lettere Antiche 25
V. Chapter Four: A Classification System for Early Renaissance Display Letters 33
VI. Chapter Five: A Classification of Fifteen Early
Renaissance Inscriptions 44
VII. Conclusion 53
VIII. Illustrations 58
IX. Glossary 95
X. Bibliography 99 vi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
FIGURE
1: ' Donatello and Michelozzo, Tomb of John XXIII (1422- 27); Baptistry, Florence (from Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, London, 1971, Fig. 58) 58
2: Donatello and Michelozzo, Inscription on the Tomb of John XXIII; Baptistry, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif and Other Experimental Inscribed Lettering of the Fifteenth Century," Motif, 5 [1960], Fig. 6) 58
3: Michelozzo, Detail of the Bronze Inscription for the Aragazzi Tomb (c. 1430); Montepulciano, Duomo (from Caplow, Michelozzo, New York, 1977, II, Fig. 72) ... 59
4: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription above the Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds (1404-07); North Door, Baptistry, Florence (from Krautheimer and Krautheimer-Hess, Lorenzo Ghiberti,. Princeton, 1956, II, PI. 27) 60-
5: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription above the Adoration of the Magi (1404-07); North Door, Baptistry, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Pi. 28) . 60
6: Luca della Robbia: Cantoria (1431-38); Museo del Opera del Duomo, Florence (from Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea Delia Robbia, London, 1902, facing p. 47) ... 61
7: Luca della Robbia, Detail of the Inscription below the Singing Boys on the Cantoria; Museo del Opera del Duomo, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 8) . 61
8: Tomb of Spinello di Bonsignore de' Spinelli; Santa Croce, Florence (from Saalman, "Tommaso Spinelli, Michelozzo, Manetti, and Rossellino," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 25 [1966], Fig. 6) 62
9: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription on the Shrine of St. Zenobius (1434-42); Duomo, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Pi. 78b) 62 vii
FIGURE PAGE
10: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Close-up of the Inscription on the Shrine of St. Zenobius; Duomo, Florence (from Goldscheider, Ghiberti, London, 1949, Fig. 112) .... 63
11: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Detail of the Inscription on the Shrine of St. Zenobius; Duomo, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Pi. 80a) 63
12: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Shrine of the Three Martyrs (c. 1428); Bargello, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 76) 64
13: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Close-up of the Inscription on the Shrine of the Three Martyrs: Bargello, Florence (from Goldscheider, Ghiberti, Fig. 111A) 64
14: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription on the Scroll of John the Baptist (1412-16); Or San Michele, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, detail of Pi. 11a) 65
15. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Detail of the Inscription on the Hem of John the Baptist (1412-16); Or San Michele, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, detail of PI. 11a) 65
16: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Tomb of the Beata Villana (ca. 1451); S. Maria Novella, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 96) 66
17: Desiderio da Settignano and assistant of Bernardo Rossellino, Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of the Beata Villana; S. Maria Novella, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 103) 66-
18: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Tomb of Leonardo Bruni (1444-51); S. Croce, Florence (from Pope-Hennesy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Fig. 60) . 67
19: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Detail of the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni; S. Croce, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 50) . 67
20: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni, left side; S. Croce, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, detail of Fig. 61) 68 viii
Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni, right side; S. Croce, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, detail of Fig. 60) .
Desiderio da Settignano, Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini (ca. 1451); S. Croce, Florence (from Pope- Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Fig. 61) . .
Desiderio da Settignano, Detail of the Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini; S. Croce, Florence (from Planiscig, Desiderio da Settignano, Wieri, 1942, Pi. 23)
Desiderio da Settignano, Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini; S. Croce, Florence (from Planiscig, Desiderio da Settignano, Pi. 24) . .
Luca della Robbia, The Federighi Monument (1454-56); Santa Trinita, Florence (from Bargellini, I Delia Robbia, Milan, 1965, Tav. X)
Luca della Robbia, Close-up of the Inscription on the Federighi Monument; Santa Trinita, Florence (from Bargellini, I Della Robbia, detail of Tav. X)
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription below Isaac on the Gates of Paradise (1445-50); Baptistry, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Pi. 94)
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription above Joshua on the Gates of Paradise; Baptistry, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Pi. 107)
Detail of the Inscription on the Pazzi Chapel (1429); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 11)
Tomb of Giovanni Chellini; S. Domenico, S. Miniato al Tadesco (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 121)
Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Giovanni Chellini; S. Domenico, S. Miniato al Tadesco (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 127)
Donatello (?), Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (1426); Duomo, Siena (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 10) . . ix
FIGURE PAGE
33: Donatello (?), Detail of Letters on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci; Duomo, Siena (from Gray, "Sans Serif," detail of Fig. 10)
34: Detail of the Bancozzi-Catenacci Tombstone (dated 1424); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 3)
35: Berto di Lionardo Tombstone (dated 1430); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 5)
36: Detail of the Schiattesi Tombstone (dated 1423); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 2) .
37: Roman Inscription (167 B.C.); Delphi, Sanctuary (from Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae, Bonn, 1912, p. 6, Fig. a)
38: R.R. Donnelly Cast of the Trajan Inscription (106-113 A.D.); Trajan Column, Rome (from Catich, The Origin of the Serif, Davenport, 1968, Fig. 81) . .
39: Augustan Inscription (1st century B.C.); Forum, Rome (from Catich, The Origin of the Serif, Fig. 163)
40: Alberti, Detail of the Inscription on the Santo Sepulchro Rucellai (1467); San Pancranzio, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 18)
41: Initial C in Cato's Life, B.M. Add. MS. 22318 (from Diringer, The Illuminated Book, London, 1967, facing p. 346)
42: Felice Feliciano, Inscriptional Scriptura Monu- mentalis (1467); above the arch of the central entrance of the Pescheria, Verona (from Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti e la rinascita del carattere lapidario romano nei quattrocento," Italia medioevale e umanistica, 2 [1959], Tav. XX)
43: Poggio Bracciolini, Laur. Strozzi 96, Salutati, De verecundia, c. 1402-3? (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of Pi. XVa)
44: Poggio Bracciolini, El Escorial N. Ill 7, Plato, Gorgias, 1411? (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of Pi. XVh) X
FIGURE PAGE
45: Sozomeno of Pistoia, Bibl. Forteguerrlana A. 4, •Terence, completed 1412 (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of Pi. XXb) 81
46: Antonio di Mario, Bibl. Laurenziana, MS. 39, 35, fol. 48v, C. Valerius Flaccus, 1429 (from Covi, "Lettering in Fifteenth Century Florentine Painting," Art Bulletin, 45 [1963], detail of Fig. 7) 81
47: Massaccio, Detail of the Trinity, Inscription above the Skeleton; Santa Maria Novella, Florence (from Covi, "Lettering," detail of Fig. 25) 82
48: Rome, Bibl. Nationale, Sessorian Bible 3, Fol. I v., twelfth century (from Garrison, Studies in the History (_ of Medieval Italian Painting, II, Florence, 1953-62, Fig. 213) . 82
49: Inscription on the Tomb of Cardinal Stefaneschi (early 15th century); Sta. Maria in Trastevere, Rome (from Anderson, The Art of Written Forms, New York, 1969, Fig. 138) 83
50: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Inscription on the Tomb of Neri Capponi; S. Spirito, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, detail of Fig. 114) 83
51: Felice Feliciano, Geometric Construction of the Letter H (from Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti," Fig. 5) 84
52: Domenico Veneziano, Detail of Fictive Inscription on the Madonna and Saints; Uffizi, Florence (from Covi, "Lettering," Fig. 40) 84
53: Andrea Mantegna, Signature on St. Euphemia (1454); Capodimonte, Naples (from Meiss, "Toward a More Comprehensive Renaissance Palaeography," Art Bulletin, 42 [1960], Fig. 18) 84
54: Chart showing the devolution of majuscules (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 147) 85
55: Drawn letter (from Catich, Origin of Serif, detail of Fig. 15) 85
56: Letter E with drawn support and built-up arms (from Johnston, Writing and Illuminating and Lettering, London, 1932, detail of Fig. 165a) . . -86 xi
FIGURE PAGE
57: Letter S, built-up with a brush (from Catich, Origin of Serif, detail of Fig. 15) 86
58: Letter E, built-up using a wide nibbed pen (from Johnston, Writing and Illuminating and Lettering, detail of Fig. 165b) 86
59: Poggio Bracciolini, Westdeutsche Bibliothek (formerly Berlin, Preuss, Staatsbibliothek) Hamilton 166, fol. 162r, Cicero, Epistola ad Atticum, 1408 (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of Pi. XVf) ... 87
60: Praenestine Brooch (7th century B.C.); Luigi Pignori Museum of Ethnography and Prehistory, Rome (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 137) 88
61: Praenestine Brooch, a stylized redrawing of its inscription (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 138) . 88
62: Tomb of Scipio Barbatus, consul 298, censor 290 B.C. (from Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae, p. 4) 89
63: Chart of Letters Found in Popular Inscriptions (from Gray, "The Palaeography of Latin Inscriptions in the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Centuries in Italy," Papers of the British School at Rome, NS 3 [1948], p. 163) . . 89
64: Munich, Bayerischestaatsbibliothek MS. Lat. 4456, Regensberg Sacramentary of Henry II, illuminated title page, c. 1007 (from Morison, Politics and Script, Oxford, 1972, Fig. 114) 90
65: Escorial Vitimas 17, Echternach Gospels of Henry III, 1043-46, Golden Uncialesque (from Morison, Politics and Script, Fig. 117) 90
66: Round Uncialesque Inscription Commemorating Innocent II (dated 1148); Sta. Maria in Trastevere, Rome (from Morison, Politics and Script, Fig. 138) . . 91
67: Giovanni del Biondo, Detail of Gothic Uncialesque Letters in the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (1364); Florence, Accademia (from Covi, "Lettering," Fig. 5) 91
68: British Museum, Letters from the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, late 10th century (Gray, Lettering as Drawing: Contour and Silhouette, London, 1970, Fig. 5) 92 xii
FIGURE RAGE
69: Paris, Bib. Nat. MS. Lat. 9388, Opening Page of the Gospel of St. John from the Metz Gospels, mid 9th century (from Gray, Lettering as Drawing: Contour and Silhouette, Fig. 7) 92
70: Pavement Inscription (dated 1207); San Miniato, Florence (Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 9) 93
71: Detail of an Inscription in Sans Serif Letters on the Facade of the Pantechnicon (c. 1820); London, Motcomb Street (from Morison, Politics and Script, Fig. 179) 93
72: Brush Written Trajanic Letters (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 162) 94 xiii
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the following kind and
generous persons, whose guidance, inspiration, and expertise have made
it possible to bring this thesis to completion:
Dr. Debra Pincus gave unreservedly of her time and energy in helping me to focus, organize, and express the ideas presented in this
paper. In addition, she frequently and extensively edited the text.
Professor James Russell suggested the merit of this subject as a
thesis topic, carefully edited the text, and provided astute guidance at all.stages of the work.
Barbara Hopkins of the slide library generously helped me to prepar
the illustrations.
Bonnie Schoenberger patiently, and with, good humour, typed and retyped the text.
Professor Peter Guenther of the University of Houston gave me the
inspiration to sustain me in this effort.
And finally - my family and friends, especially my wife Helen, united with them in providing the spiritual encouragement to enable me t
"run, and not be weary; ... walk, and not faint." 1
Introduction
For a period of some seventy years, roughly 1400-1470, Florentine artists used certain Roman letters (Figs. 1-36) for their inscriptional work on tomb, architectural, and other monuments—letters which can be referred to as 'early inscriptionals'. These letters have received a negative appraisal from both art historians and palaeographers, in part based on the positive appraisal of the so-called Trajanic letters which superseded the early inscriptionals and remained canonic for over three centuries (Figs. 40, 42, 50). On the assumption that the Trajanic letters were the first "perfected," genuinely antique letters of the Renaissance because they appear to duplicate a known antique style (Figs. 38, 39),^" the early inscriptionals have been seen as constituting an intermediate— 2 a transitional or "anticipatory" style. Nicolete Gray's singular attempt to order or classify the early inscriptionals divides them into styles 3 according to the degree of "gothic" characteristics which they exhibit.
The existence of only one effort to classify the early inscriptionals is in accord with another aspect of the negative appraisal they have received—that the letters lack harmony of style and definitiveness of 4 form, two essentials of a distinct calligraphic script. Two factors have tended, I believe, to delay a reassessment of early inscriptionals: the a_ priori assumption that the early inscriptionals are "romano gothic" and therefore experimental in form; and the considerable variation in appear• ance which the early inscriptionals exhibit, a variation which tends to obscure their common characteristics (Figs. 7, 17, 24).
Today, when there is a multiplicity of styles in use and an acceptance of varying degrees of formality for "dignified" scripts, the 2
inscriptional letters of the early Renaissance may more readily be seen as constituting a distinct group—executed with varying techniques but 5 all within the Roman tradition. Such a reassessment is the objective of this thesis. On the basis of a stylistic re-evaluation and a reclassifi• cation of early inscriptionals, I will argue that the early inscriptionals were the first genuinely antique letters to follow the Gothic Uncialesque of the fourteenth century. On the basis of a reclassification of early inscriptionals—a reclassification which takes into account the principles of letter design and execution—I will demonstrate the lines of stylistic continuity which emerge when the early inscriptionals are ordered according to their formal qualities as letters. This reassessment will show that the period of the early inscriptionals, even though but a moment in the long history of letter design, is one of the most revealing in the history of
Western lettering. It is by no means inferior in the succession of letters which exhibit a monumental historic significance, a profoundly expressive significance, and an artistic consciousness of the principles of calligraphic letter design.
But first some disclaimers. The stylistic groupings which emerge
from the guidelines suggested in this paper are tentative for a number of reasons. All of the material germane to the subject has not yet been
established or collected. In addition, while close photographs are
essential for a competent palaeographical analysis, for the larger part of
the material that has been collected adequate photographs are lacking; it
rarely has been seen as necessary to photograph inscriptions—even those
on significant monuments—at close range. Finally, having never visited
the monuments in person, I have not been able to confirm photographic
impressions with direct observation or squeezes. 3
The sixteen monumental inscriptions considered in this paper cannot be said to be a completely representative cross-section of Florentine calligraphy. They have been chosen as a sampling of the best that
Renaissance Florentine artists had to offer insofar as the inscriptions which have been photographed have been on monuments executed by the best
Florentine artisans. I have exercised discrimination, I believe, in not omitting representative works and in considering a representative cross-
section of those inscriptions which already have been discussed in the literature.
The majority of the inscriptions discussed here are incised into a
stone or bronze ground. However, certain exceptions have been'included in order to present a more comprehensive view of the lettering styles of
Lorenzo Ghiberti and Michelozzo: the bronze inscription for Michelozzo's
Tomb of Bartolomeo Aragazzi (Fig. 3), in which the letters are raised; and the inscriptions on Ghiberti's North Doors of the Florentine Baptistry
(Figs. 4-5), on which the letters were lightly engraved and then gilded.
For comprehensiveness, I have chosen to consider the works of Florentine artisans whether or not those monuments were located in Florence. I have
therefore included the Aragazzi Tomb (Fig. 3), the Pecci Tomb (Figs. 32-33), and the Tomb of Giovanni Chellini (Figs. 30-31)—all of which are located outside of Florence itself. 4
Footnotes: Introduction
As will be discussed later in this paper, early Trajanic letters of the Renaissance looked like Traj an letters but were executed in a fashion very different from the way in which the first Trajanic letters were formed.
2 The use of the words "mutation" and "anticipation" or "anticipatory" in this thesis has been adopted in accordance with a suggestion made by Erwin Panofsky at the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art (see Jean Bony, "Introduction," Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, I [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963], p. 81).' Panofsky, as paraphrased by Bony, stated that "he was inclined to doubt that the concept of 'transition' has a^legitimate place in art historical writing because, in his view, all major innovations amount to the opening of a door that had been closed before—a process that may be compared to a mutation in biology: there is no real 'transition' between a mutant and its progenitors. The concepts that Panofsky believes should be used instead are: first, anticipation (as when some characteristics of a later style seem to appear at a much earlier date without as yet leading to a continuous tradition); second, mutation. ..." I am indebted to Pat Cairney for calling my attention to this passage. 3 Nicolete Gray, "Sans Serif and Other Experimental Inscribed Lettering of the Early Renaissance," Motif, 5 (1960), pp. 66-76.
4 E.A. Lowe, "Handwriting," The Legacy of the Middle Ages, ed. C.G. Crump and E.F. Jacob (1926; rpt. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1948), p. 197.
In making this statement, I am paraphrasing and amplifying a similar statement made by Nicolete Gray. Gray stated that "Today, when design is again at a fluid stage, these are of great interest and one can regard them as inventions in their own right, not just as steps towards a final rediscovery." See Gray, "Sans Serif," p. 67.
6 The Aragazzi tomb is in the Duomo at Montepulciano, the Pecci tomb is in the Siena cathedral, and the Chellini tomb is in the Duomo at San Miniato al Tedesco. 5
Chapter I:
Humanist Lettering vs. Scriptura Monumentalis
This thesis presents a reassessment of the display letters used by
Florentine artists from the beginning of the fifteenth century through the
1470's. Behind this investigation lies the profound dictum of the renowned palaeographer, E.A. Lowe, who declared:
... though scripts seem to move down the ages with the majestic slowness of glaciers, they are not mere carriers or external instruments, but genuine mani• festations of their age, bearing the marks of its vicissitudes. Thus writing, which is primarily the humble medium for recording the deeds, thoughts, and interests of an age, by dint of being itself an art, becomes at once an expression and a register of the spirit which informs that age. Herein lies the peculiar interest that writing has for the student of culture in general.1
By far the majority of the inscriptions considered in this paper are from tombs of the early Renaissance—an artistic form to which I was introduced some three years ago while researching the relationship between the Renaissance antique revival and the wording as well as the palaeographic form of early Renaissance tomb inscriptions.
Responding to communal and private demands, the prominent sculptors of the early Renaissance were prolific in their creation of tomb monuments.
Virtually all of the major sculptors of the period were employed on tomb commissions, architecturally conceived and placed in prominent positions in the major Florentine churches. Two such monuments are the Tomb of
Leonardo Bruni (Fig. 18) and the Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini (Fig. 22), both chancellors of Florence and humanist scholars. Facing each other acrdss the nave of the Franciscan church of Santa Croce, these monuments reflect the inclination of early Renaissance sculptors to incorporate numerous 6
antique features into the design of tomb monuments. Such monuments served as conspicuous memorials to the deceased—to enhance, as it were, their fama—and as silent heralds of the emergence of a new educational, and ultimately moral or' spiritual ideal—the studia humanitatis, which found its expression in neo-antique forms for which the models were the remains 2 of "hallowed antiquity"—sacrosancta vetustas.
The prominent placement of inscriptions on the early Renaissance tombs suggests that they were conceived as integral elements of the monu- 3 ments they adorned. Like the monuments, they reflect the antique inspiration of their designers. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, but more consistently from the 1420's onward, the letters of the inscriptions on sarcophagi, and those on other forms understood as being of antique inspiration (i.e., architecture, medals, medallions, or parapets) 4 assume a Roman-related antique form.
A Renaissance artisan such as Lorenzo Ghiberti would call these letters "lettere antiche." They appeared not only on real objects of antique inspiration, but also on fictive monuments, such as painted architecture or painted sarcophagi. Ghiberti used the term lettere antiche to describe the letters he fashioned on the Shrine of St. Zenobius
(Figs. 9-11), and those he carved on an antique cornelian.5
The same expression was used by scribes and men of letters in describing pen-written capitals and miniscules. Vespasiano da Bisticci, the Florentine book publisher and supporter of the new humanistica script, wrote that the Florentine notary and professional scribe, Poggio
Bracciolini, "was a fine copyist of lettera antica ... and in his youth copied for money; and in this way he met his need for books and other things." Similarly, the term was employed to describe the writing in 7
certain manuscripts found in the papal library during an inventory in
1443, all of which were written in the humanistic hand perfected by
Ppggio Bracciolini in the early years of the fifteenth century.^
Miniscule letters were classified in the Renaissance by reference to the cursive character—the "running" quality or speed of execution—of the letters. Thus Vespasiano da Bisticci stated that Niccolo Niccoli—a scholar, calligrapher, and votary of classical antiquity—used neo-antique miniscule letters of varying degrees of cursivity or formality for the copying, using Niccoli's expression, all'antiqua, in the manner of, or with the savour of antiquity, of manuscripts of antique authors.
Vespasiano called Niccoli's two most formal scripts the formata and the corsiva; without naming it, he described a third as an especially fast g script which Niccoli used for dictation purposes. The modern palaeographer
Stanley Morison has suggested that this extra fast script be called the , 9 corrente.
We do not know whether Renaissance calligraphers used a similar classification for capital letters, but one may be inferred from the artistic evidence. An inspection of Renaissance manuscripts written all'antica (Figs. 43-46) reveals that these manuscripts were punctuated and decorated with large letters at the beginning of verses or paragraphs which were given a heaviness or a greater monumentality by an accentuation, a building-up, of their members (Fig. 44). These letters are now called versals."*"^ The same manuscripts exhibit even larger decorated or foliated letters at the beginning of major sections which, being much larger, were outlined and later filled-in with colour (Fig. 43, 46). Such letters are called initials. The larger versals and initials were also designed all'antica to harmonize with the neo-antique miniscule script which they 8
accompanied, quite possibly at the urging, if not the hand, of Niccoli himself.11 Initials and versals are letters which are drawn instead of written. They are less cursive than written capitals (Fig. 59) since it takes more time and care to either outline or build-up a letter than it does to write one.
The selective use, in manuscripts, of different types of majuscules— written capitals, initials, or versals—for different purposes is a factor of considerable interest and significance. The type of majuscule which was used for stately purposes in manuscripts—that is, the versals and initials—was also used for inscriptional lettering. There is, there• fore, a continuity in the palaeographic design of display letters whether they are presented on vellum, stone, bronze, or wood. For example, the shape and the shading of the initial letter N in an early manuscript of the notary and papal secretary, Poggio Bracciolini (Fig. 43), are identical with the shape and shading of the N's on Luca della Robbia's Cantoria
(Roman N with tapered legs in Fig. 7) or Ghiberti's Shrine of the Three
Martyrs (Fig. 13). The more cursive accentuation of the A in a slightly later Poggio manuscript (Fig. 44) is similar to that of the A in the Tomb of the Beata Villana (Fig. 17) from the Rossellino workshop. The shape and the shading of the initial A's in an early Terence of Sozomeno of
Pistoia (Fig. 45, the serifed A preceding INCIPIT) as well as Antonio di
Mario's C. Valerius Flaccus (Fig. 46, the decorated initial) are similar to the shape and shading of the A's in the Donatello and Michelozzo's
Tomb of John XXIII (Fig. 2), Ghiberti's Shrine of St. Zenobius (Figs. 10,
11), Masaccio's Trinity (Fig. 47), and Michelozzo's bronze inscription 12 for the Aragazzi Tomb (Fig. 3). In some instances—as, for example, the lettering on the Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini (Fig. 24)—the letters, although 9
versals, appear close to written, cursive letters, due to their limited two-dimensional extension; they are closely related to written manuscript capitals. 13 During the 1470's, a newcomer to the Renaissance inscriptional sphere, the neo-Trajanic letter (Figs. 40, 42)—which had apprenticed as 14 a manuscript initial some twenty years earlier —pre-empted the versal as the letter of choice for inscriptional lettering. Neo-Trajanic letters were thought to duplicate a known antique type (i.e., genuinely Roman, before the fifth century, Figs. 38, 39)"^ and, once accepted, they remained canonic until the appearance of the sans serif letters at the beginning of 16 the nineteenth century (Fig. 71). Although they were not, when first used, seen as requiring a special title—being apparently considered as part of the lettere antiche—some eighty years later they received the title of lettere romane.^ Today, because of their resemblance to the
Trajanic letters on Trajan's Column in Rome (Fig. 38), they are called 18 Trajanic letters; the generic name given to them in the specialized 19 modern literature is the scriptura monumentalis.
Beginning in the 1470's, then, versals of varying degrees of cursiv- ity were joined and then rapidly replaced by the scriptura monumentalis. Twentieth century art historians have conceived of a developmental picture to explain the short-lived inscriptionals of the early Renaissance and the emergence in the 1470's of the lettere romane. The picture rests on a number of assumptions: first, that the point at which a letter can be said to definitively fall within the antique tradition is the point at which it duplicates a known antique style; second, that the early inscrip• tionals are stylistically anticipatory to the later lettere romane or 10
Trajanic letters; and third, that the lettere romane are the real mutant' forms in the development of display letters during the Renaissance.
Implicit in these assumptions is the notion that the early inscriptionals, because experimental, are therefore lacking in stylistic continuity.
Millard Meiss expressed this developmental concept very succinctly in his book Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator (1957). Speaking of the period following the 1420's, the decade to which the first major group of early inscriptionals belongs, Meiss stated:
Slowly during the subsequent years, especially in lapidary inscriptions, the letters drew closer to Roman precedent; ... It was only much later in the century, however, that capital letters acquired the perfection of the finely serifed scriptura monumen- talis of the late Republic of early Empire.21
Similarly, the modern epigraphist and scholar, Giovanni Mardersteig, stated:
La rinascita del carattere lapidario romano risale essatamente alia meta del secolo, ma solo dopo due decenni de graduale sviluppo raggiungeva la sua forma classica.22
As previously suggested, this developmental picture has been tradi• tionally associated with a negative appraisal of the early inscriptionals.
For example, at the beginning of the twentieth century, A. Schmarsow characterized the painted display letters of Domenico Veneziano and
Benozzo Gozzoli (Fig. 52) as constituting an "imperfect Roman lapidary 23 style." In 1923, A. Hessel described the early inscriptionals as 24 gotico antiqua or romano-gothic. More recently, in 1959, Giovanni
Mardersteig characterized the letters on Luca della Robbia's Cantoria
(Figs. 6, 7) and those on the Tomb of John XXIII by Donatello and 25 Michelozzo (Fig. 2) as being "caratteri di tipo romano e gotico." In 11
1960, Nicolete Gray, a scholar and practising calligrapher, spoke of the early inscriptionals as "experimental" and "intermediate between Gothic 26 and Roman." And in 1972, Stanley Morison, an eminent palaeographer, spoke of the lettering on the Tomb of John XXIII (Fig. 2) as "of an 27
'artistic' and primitive experimental type."
In recent years, however, a few scholars—in particular, Millard Meiss and Nicolete Gray—have laid the foundation for a reassessment of early inscriptionals. Their contribution to the formation of a new view of early inscriptionals will be considered in the following chapter. 12
Footnotes: Chapter I
Lowe, "Handwriting," p. 198.
2 Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (1965; rpt. London: Granada Publishing Co., 1970), pp. 68-113 et passim. See also R. Weiss, The Spread of Italian Humanism (London: Hutchinson and Co. Ltd., 1964), 11-21; B.L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955), pp. 11-40; William J. Bouwsma, The Interpretation of Renaissance Humanism (Washington: The American Historical Association, 1959); John Edwin Sandys, Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905); Eugenio Garin, Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance, trans. Peter Munz (1966; rpt. New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1969), pp. 1-20.
3 John Sparrow, Visible Words: A Study of Inscriptions in and as Works of Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 16-17. 4 Dario Covi, "Lettering in Fifteenth Century Florentine Painting," Art Bulletin, 45 (1963), pp. 13-15. Covi links the appearance of inscrip• tions in Roman letters with Alberti's theory of architectural harmony which Alberti expressed in his treatise, De Re Aedificatoria. Observing that inscriptions had become accepted as integral parts of artistic monuments, Covi stated: "Thus conceived, they had to be made to conform to the style of the particular objects on which they were placed. This was implicit in Renaissance thought and theory. Leon Battista Alberti, in Books VI and IX of the De Re Aedificatoria, extols harmony as a cardinal principle of beauty, defining it as the consonance of all the parts of a thing... It would have been contrary to the Florentine sense and theory of harmony to impose Gothic letters on classical or Renaissance objects." A problem with Covi's theory is that it ignores the intrinsic artistic merit and the expressive qualities of the letters, relegating them to the status of an adjunct to architecture.
^ The expression was used in his autobiography, I Commentarii [the text of which may be found in Ludwig Goldscheider, Ghiberti (London: Phaidon Press, 1949), pp. 19-21, esp. art. 12; and in Richard Krautheimer and Trude Krautheimer-Hess, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), I, pp. 12-15].
6 B.L. Ullman, Origin, p. 23 and n. 10 in which Ullman gives his source as : Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini del secolo XV (Milan, 1951), p. 291. 13
For the full quotation in the papal inventory, see: Covi, "Lettering," p. 6, n. 41; and Stanley Morison, "Early Humanistic Script and the First Roman Type," The Library, 4th Ser., 24 (June-September, 1943), p. 6, n. 1.
g Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," pp. 5-6. For pertinent obser• vations on the place of Niccolo Niccoli in the humanist revival of letters, see: Ernst H. Gombrich, "From the Revival of Letters to the Reform of the Arts," Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rodolf Wittkower, ed. Douglas Fraser, Howard Hibbard, and Milton J. Lewine (London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1967), pp. 71-82.
9 Ibid., p. 6.
The term is used by Edward Johnston, Writing and Illuminating and Lettering (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1932), pp. 112-113. Nicolete Gray, Lettering as Drawing: Contour and Silhouette (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 5.
11 A suggestion made by A.C. de la Mare, The Handwriting of the Italian Humanists, Vol. 1, fasc. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 50, 74.
12 For concise and scholarly biographies of Poggio Bracciolini, Niccolo Niccoli, Bartolomeo Aragazzi, Sozomeno of Pistoia, et al, see de la Mare, op. cit. While the models for the humanist miniscule script seem to have been miniscule letters in manuscripts of the eighth through the twelfth centuries, the closest patterns for Florentine inscriptional and painted majuscules, as well as manuscript versals, appear to have been twelfth century manuscript versals and initials. For the dates of the possible models for the new humanistic script see Ullman, Origin, p. 54; B.L. Ullman, Ancient Writing and Its Influence (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1963), p. 137; and Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 7. All three suggestions differ, although all of the dates given fall within the range of the eighth through the twelfth centuries. For possible models for the lettere antiche in twelfth century manuscripts see E.B. Garrison, Studies in the History of Medieval Italian Painting (Florence: L'Impronta, 1955-56), Figs. 3, 98, 99, 204, 215, as well as Fig. 213 which is illustrated in this thesis as Fig. 48. That provenance is consonant with what is presently known concerning the derivations of early Renaissance architectural motives and the floral decorations of fifteenth century decorated initials. See Figs. 43, 46, this thesis. For the floral motifs decorating fifteenth century "vine stem" initials see: Otto Pacht, "Notes and Observations on the Origin of Humanistic Book-Decoration," Saxl Memorial Essays (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1857), pp. 184-194; and for observations concerning the relationship of the "vine-stem" initials in Poggio Bracciolini's 14
manuscripts of classical authors to twelfth century models see: Albania De La Mare and Douglas F.S. Thompson, "Poggio's Earliest Manuscript," Italia medioevale e umanistica, 16(1973), pp. 191-192 and A.G. De La Mare, Handwriting, pp. 49-50. In fn. 1, p. 50, De La Mare notes that a Livy manuscript from the hand of Giovanni Aretino (Florence, Laur. 63, 5, Livy Dec. Ill, finished in 1412) has ','vlne stem" initials, as well as an undated, but probably earlier Livy (Florence, Laur. 63, 4, Dec. I) by Aretino. The earliest manuscript having a "vine-stem" initial which approximates the form of a Renaissance inscriptional letter is Laur. Strozzi 96, Salutati, De verecundia, attributed both by De La Mare and Ullman to Poggio Bracciolini and dating to 1402-03. See De La Mare, Handwriting, p. 78, #13, and Ullman, Origin, pp. 21, 24-27. That letter is here given as Fig. 43. For the parallel influence of Tuscan Proto-Renaissance buildings of the twelfth century on fifteenth century architects see: Rudolf Wittkower, "Alberti's Approach to Antiquity in Architecture," JWCI, 4
(1941), p. 2;; and Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences, pp. 40 and 164. Panofsky's reference: H. Teitze, "Romanische Kunst und Renaissance," Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg, 1926-27, p. 43ff., particularly p. 52f.
13 Millard Meiss, Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), p. 57; Covi, "Lettering," p. 8; Giovanni Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti e la rinascita del carattere lapidario romano nei quattrocento," Italia medioevale e umanistica, 2.(1959), p. 295; Nicolete Gray, "Sans Serif," p. 68. In Florence, Alberti's inscription on the Santo Sepolcro Rucellai (San Pancranzio, 1467) marks one of the earliest appearances of the Trajanic letter. See Fig. 40. Letters exhibiting the conventions of Trajanic letters were being used as early as the 1450's by Andrea Mantegna (Fig. 53) and by Donatello. See Millard Meiss, "Towards a More Comprehensive Renaissance Palaeography," Art Bulletin, 42(1960), pp. 101-104.
14 Millard Meiss, Andrea Mantegna, pp. 52-67.
15 In Joyce S. and Arthur E. Gordon, "Contributions to the Palaeo• graphy of Latin Inscriptions," University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology, 3 (1946-57), pp. 80-81, the Gordons established that Trajanic letters are historically associated with the period of the Roman Empire. No documentary evidence has yet been presented to suggest that Renaissance calligraphers were aware of the historical associations we now attach to the Imperial and Republican letters respectively. Conv inced that Trajanic letters must have been constructed along geometrical lines in order to have obtained an inner harmony—that is, applying the same principles to lettering that they applied to architecture— later fifteenth century theorists stressed the importance of geometrical constructs to the proper design of Trajanic letters. The earliest known manuscript dealing with that subject is that of Felice Feliciano, the archaeologically oriented antiquarian and calligrapher whose manuscript appeared in the early 1460's. For geometrically constructed letters of the Renaissance see Donald M. Anderson, The Art of Written Forms: The Theory and Practice of Calligraphy (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 15
Inc., 1969), pp. 125-133; Albrecht Durer, On the Just Shaping of Letters, trans. R.T. Nichol (1535; rpt. New York: The Grolier Club, 1917); Giovanni Battista Verini, Luminario, trans. A.F. Johnson with intro. Stanley Morison (1526; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1947), pp. 1-12 e_t passim; Stanley Morison, Fra Luca de Pacioli of Borgo S. Sepolcro (New York: The Grolier- Club, 1933), pp. 13-73. For Feliciano's place as the first to introduce a manuscript describing the geometric con• struction of Trajanic letters see: James Mosley, "Trajan Revived," Alphabet, 1 (1964), p. 18; Morison, Fra Luca, p. 15; Anderson, Art of Written Forms, p. 126. Anderson gives the date of c. 1463.
^ For the appearance of "pure" sans-serif letters on nineteenth century Greek revival architecture see: Stanley Morison, Politics and Script, ed. and completed by Nicholas Barker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 323-24.
^ Felice Feliciano called the geometrically constructed letters he proposed in the sixties antique caractere. Giovanni Battista Verini (1526) called his constructed letters lettere antiche. But, when Giovanbattista Palatino published a writing book "of the Arrighi-Tagliente type" in 1545, he called the geometrically constructed antique letters by the title lettere romane. And when the Spanish calligrapher Juan de Yciar published his Arte subtilissima in 1548, he called the letters letra latina. Clearly a distinction had been made by the middle of the sixteenth century. One of the earliest recorded uses of the term lettere romane is that of Durer in his treatise entitled On the Just Shaping of Letters, published in 1535. I have not seen the Latin text, but if the translation from the Latin of R.T. Nichol is accurate, Durer used the term littera romana. See Durer, Just Shaping of Letters, p. 5. For Felice Feliciano's use of the term antique caractere, Palatino's use of the term lettere romane, and Verini's use of the term lettere antiche,. see Verini, Luminario, pp. 8, 10, 19. For the use of the term letra latina see Donald M. Anderson, Art of Written Forms, p. 130. Trajanic letters appear to have been championed by antiquarians with an archaeological bent, like the antiquarian and calligrapher, Felice Feliciano (Figs. 42, 51). Whereas the first wave of antique revivalists appears to have been scholars oriented toward the written remains of antiquity, the second wave appears to have been comprised of amateur archaeologists oriented toward the physical remains of antiquity. Follow• ing in the footsteps of Ciriaco of Ancona (c. 1391-1450), Felice Feliciano, Giovanni Marcanova, Fra Giovanni Giocondo, the calligrapher Bartolomeo Sanvito, and the painter Andrea Mantegna formed sillogi of inscriptions by copying texts from antique monuments. Such efforts were to culminate four centuries later in works such as Theodore Mommsen's Corpus Inscrip- tionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1863) . For the activities of Ciriaco of Ancona see: Phyllis Williams Lehmann and Karl Lehmann, Samothracian Reflections: Aspects of the Revival of the Antique (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973). For the efforts of Felice Feliciano see: Charles Mitchell, "Felice Feliciano Antiquarius," Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), pp. 197-222. For the work of early antiquarians, including Poggio Bracciolini—who, as Ullman states, took the form of his antique capitals from antique inscriptions (Ullman, Humanistic Script, pp. 55-56)— 16
see: John Edwin Sandys, Latin Epigraphy: An Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscriptions (Groningen: Bauma's Boekhuis N.V., 1969), pp. 20- 24. Sandys' recounting of one of the most memorable adventures of some of the early antiquarians (Felice Feliciano, Giovanni Marcanova—physician and philosopher—and Andrea Mantegna) on the western shore of the Lago di Garda in the autumn of 1464 is succinct and quite beautiful. See also John Edwin Sandys, Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905). A brief account of the early anti• quarians interested in inscriptional letters is given by Anderson, Art of Written Forms, pp. 125-26.
18 •E.A. Catich, The Origin of the Serif (Davenport: The Catfish Press, 1968), pp. 157-58. Modern palaeographers, in considering the epigraphic remains of Roman antiquity, have stressed the importance of the concept of the epigraphic letter as being a palaeographic form made permanent. Epigraphists, such as Giancarlo Susini, while stressing the importance of other aspects, of an inscription which make it more than simply a palaeographic document, have nevertheless agreed with the thesis propounded by the palaeographer, Jean Mallon: to wit, that an inscription may be "appraised, as far as the palaeographer is concerned, from the same point of view and by the same methods." See Giancarlo Susini, The Roman Stonecutter: An Introduction to Latin Epigraphy, ed. E. Badian and trans. A.M. Dabrowski (1967; rpt. London: Camelot Press Ltd., 1973), p. 1. Mallon distinguished three distinct stages in the production of an epigraphic monument: planning, executing, and cutting. Planning involves the drafting of the text; executing involves the transferring of the text to the stone—that is, the writing or lettering of the text (called the ordinatio) on the stone with either a brush or a firmer stylographic tool by the so-called ordinator or quadratarius; and cutting involves the fixing of the palaeographic form through the carving of a V cut in the stone by the sculptor or the so-called lapicida. See again Susini, Roman Stonecutter, pp. 2-3. The second stage is analagous to the writing or lettering process on parchment or vellum, and therefore the ordinatio clearly falls within the domain of the palaeographer. Father Catich proposed similar stages in the creating of an inscrip• tional monument after an intensive study of the letters on Trajan's Column in Rome (Fig. 38). To the above stages he added a fourth—the painting of the V cut with a red-orange pigment. Catich concluded that chiselling is "... wholly ancillary to writing and lettering. It is the supporting buttress to the written inscription which is the all-important element." See Catich, Origin of the Serif, pp. 65-66.
19 Recently Father E.A. Catich has suggested that the Trajanic letters were brush written, not drawn, on the stone and then incised for permanence. He has therefore stressed their flowing, cursive character. See Fig. 72, Catich, Origin of the Serif, pp. 66, 184, et passim.
See n. 2, Introduction. 17
Meiss, Andrea Mantegna, p. 57. Meiss has made a number of out• standing contributions to a new understanding of the lettere antiche, which will be discussed in Chapter II.
22 Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti," p. 286.
23 Covi, "Lettering," p. 7, fn. 56. Coyi's ref. from n. 8, p. 2 is A. Schmarsow, "Domenico Veneziano," L'Arte, 15 (1912), p. 10. 24 Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 3, n. 1. Morison's ref.: A. Hessel in "Von der Schrift zum Druck," Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins fur Buchwesen und Schrifttum,. 6 (1923), p. 92.
Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti," p. 286.
Gray, "Sans Serif," p. 67. 18
Chapter II:
Modern Art Historical Appraisal of Early Inscriptionals
Millard Meiss and Nicolete Gray ushered in a new criticism of early
Florentine inscriptionals in 1960 with two separately published articles which stressed the distinctive qualities of the early inscriptionals and drew attention to aspects of their stylistic continuity.
Meiss, departing from the negative judgement of early inscriptionals he had previously set forth in his book, Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator, praised their austerity in such a way as to suggest that they exhibited the moral virtues which early humanist scholars admiringly attributed to the Romans of the Republican period.1 Using the suggestive adjectives of
Ambrogio Traversari, Meiss declared:
... the similarities in these inscriptions are greater than the differences. They all possess what Ambrogio Traversari described as puritas and suavitas. There is a continuity and what may be called, I think, a strong palaeographic tradition.2
Thus Meiss saw the early inscriptionals as constituting a coherent unit— one which he chose to call a tradition—characterized principally by^ the qualities of puritas and suavitas, terms which Meiss translated as 3 "restrained measure and spare elegance." Meiss further elaborated on the characteristics of that tradition by using descriptive adjectives employed 4 by Lorenzo Valla: planius, apertius, and distinctius . Plan-ius relates to being clear, distinct, or legible; apertius, to being plain, clear, f manifest, or undecorated; and distinctius, to being separate and distinct.
Meiss praised precisely that quality of the early inscriptionals by which they significantly differ from the scriptura monumentalis—their more formal and less cursive character.5 19
Meiss did not follow up his revised estimate of the early inscrip• tionals with a systematic analysis. However, by emphasizing their distinctive quality as a class—a quality which he saw as a high degree of formality—he stressed their planned rather than their accidental or experimental aspect, and thus prepared the way for a new understanding of early inscriptionals.
Meiss made another contribution to a revised understanding of early inscriptionals by suggesting that they might have an antique precedent.
Although he did not find one, his search raised the possibility of viewing the early inscriptionals as genuinely antique whether or not a given model might be found. The concept of the genuinely antique quality of the early inscriptionals is the fundamental tenet of Chapter III of this paper.
Like Meiss, Nicolete Gray highlighted the distinctively formal, undecorated quality of the early inscriptionals by associating them with a modern, somewhat austere style of lettering called "sans serif" (Fig. 71).
In its narrowest sense, sans serif lettering is monoline—all lines being of the same width—and serifless. Technically, early inscriptionals in the Florentine sphere of inscriptional activity^ are not sans serif—a g fact which Gray herself realized. Many early inscriptionals in the
Florentine sphere are serifed (Figs. 3, 9, 10, 20, 21), and almost all exhibit a modulation in the width of the strokes forming the letters (e.g.,
Figs. 3, 7, 8, 11, 17). However, Gray's association of early inscriptionals with the general class of sans serif letters is legitimate insofar as early inscriptionals exhibit a formality very much akin to those which are sans serif in style. Gray further emphasized the distinctiveness of the early inscriptionals by suggesting the letters are "... of intrinsic interest and one can regard them as inventions in their own right, not just as steps 20
towards a final rediscovery." At one point Gray suggested that early inscriptionals, like sans serif letters, belong with Trajanic letters to the same antique tradition. Using the term "Roman" to refer to the letters here called the lettere romane or the scriptura monumentalis, she stated that:
... when people started to think about sans they have thought of it as the skeleton of the Roman, rather than thinking of sans and Roman as simple, or compli• cated and sophisticated, versions of the same forms.10
But she did not follow through with that conception when determining the lines of continuity among early inscriptionals.
Gray established three styles within the collection of early inscrip• tionals in the geographical spheres of Florence, Rimini, and Rome. Two of those styles, favoured in Florence, were characterized by Gray as "romano- gothic" and not genuinely Roman. These styles are distinguished by the degree to which they exhibit key "gothic" characteristics—namely, curvilinear modulation in the contour of letter downstrokes and recti• linear modulation in the width of other rectilinear parts—arms and oblique lines—of letters."'""'" Curvilinear modulation in the contour of letter downstrokes can be seen quite clearly in most of the downstrokes in the inscription on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (Figs. 32, 33, note especially the legs of the N in DNO and the I's in IOHANNI); and the rectilinear modulation in the width of the arms and oblique lines can be seen very vividly in the letters on Luca's Cantoria (Fig. 7, note especially the A's and the E's). Naming her Florentine styles after exemplary tomb inscrip• tions, Gray called them the Berto di Leonardo Style (Fig. 35), the
Bancozzi-Catenacci Style (Fig. 34), and the Schiattesi Style (Fig. 36): the first style exhibits both forms of modulation; the second features 21
only rectilinear modulation in arms and oblique lines; the third shows neither of these characteristics. The "pure sans serif" design of the letters of the Schiattesi Style (Fig. 36), since it was rarely practiced by Florentine artists, will not be discussed in this paper.
, Within the category of the Bancozzi-Cantenacci Style Gray placed the following monuments: the Bancozzi-Catenacci Tomb (Fig. 34), the Tomb of
John XXIII (Fig. 2), the North Door of the Florentine Baptistry (Figs. 4-5), the Shrine of St., Zenobius (Figs. 9-11), the Shrine of the Three Martyrs
(Figs. 12, 13), and Luca della Robbia's Cantoria (Figs. 6, 7).
Gray listed only two monuments which clearly exhibit the characteristic curvilinear modulation in the contour of downstrokes said to distinguish the
Berto di Leonardo Style: the Berto di Leonardo Tomb itself (Fig. 35) and the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (Figs. 32, 33) attributed to Donatello. She made that style more inclusive, however, by including within the same
sphere those letters in which the curvilinear modulation, in the hands of "less accomplished letter designers" became the "less precise wedge 12
termination." Thus Gray included the altar of the Pazzi Chapel (Fig.
29) and the Tomb of the Beata Villana (Figs. 16, 17) within the Berto di
Leonardo category.
While Gray saw early inscriptionals as distinctive and as the product of a conscious choice, her method of classifying them reflects the tradi•
tional a priori assumption that they are essentially "romano-gothic."
Once that assumption had been made, Gray was then inclined to find support
for it in the stylistic evidence by associating early inscriptionals with particular gothic motives (e.g., splaying of downstrokes) or by labeling certain motives which they exhibit, such as rectilinear modulated width of
line in letter arms, as "gothic." 22
Gray's analysis and classification of early inscriptionals involves two important misinterpretations of the stylistic evidence: a misinter• pretation of two stylistic characteristics, labeled by Gray as gothic, and a misinterpretation of the taxonomic significance of curvilinear modula• tion in letter downstrokes. Rectilinear modulation in the width of letter arms and some of the oblique lines of letters, although characteristic of early inscriptionals, cannot be conceived stylistically as gothic.
Curvilinear modulation in letter downstrokes, although stylistically a gothic characteristic, cannot legitimately be seen as typical of a large class of early inscriptionals since it is not appropriate to see wedges as
"imprecise" attempts at executing curves; the splaying of downstrokes is properly seen only in taxonomic association with letter shape and therefore is of a broader and wider classifying significance.
To support those contentions, and, in the process, to show that most early inscriptionals are properly classified as Roman instead of romano- gothic, a stylistic re-evaluation of early inscriptionals is offered in
Chapter III. In Chapter IV, a neutral system of analysis, one employing an objective palaeographic methodology, is introduced as a descriptive tool by which early inscriptionals may be analyzed and classified in terms of their qualities and not in terms of their departure from or adherence to a norm. Drawing on the conclusions of Chapter III and employing the methodology introduced in Chapter IV, Chapter V concludes the argument of this thesis with a reclassification of early inscriptionals to show their
-, . . . . 13 lines of stylistic continuity. 23
Footnotes: Chapter II
1 I am indebted to Dr. Debra Pincus for this reading of Meiss.
2 Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," p. 99.
3 Ibid • » p. 103.
4 Ibid p. 99.
5 For ref., see Ch. 1, fn. 19. It is precisely the flowing quality of the neo-Trajanic letter which is emphasized by E.A. Catich. The formal qualities of the humanistic miniscule lettere antiche were noted by two outstanding humanist scholars of the fourteenth century, Petrarch and Coluccio Salutati. Petrarch wrote to his friend Boccaccio in 1352 that he preferred manuscripts written in 'lettera antiqua', and that he was sending Boccaccio a copy of his (Petrarch's) epistles written "not in the spreading luxuriant lettering, fashionable at a time when scribes are painters, that pleases but tires the eyes, as if they were invented for anything else than reading, but in a trim, clear hand, appealing to the eye" (the underlining is mine). Similarly, the Florentine chancellor, Coluccio Salutati, wrote in 1392 to "his French friend Jean de Montreuil for a copy of Abelard in 'antiqua littera' as no other script was more pleasing to his eyes." For the Petrarch quotation see B.L. Ullman, Origin, pp. 12-13, and n. 6 for the entire Latin quotation. Ullman's ref: Epist. fam. XXIII, 19, 8 (1366). For the Salutati quotation see Ullman, Origin, pp. 13-14, and n. 10. Ullman's ref.: Epist. Ill (1896), p. 76.
6 The "narrow sense" of the sans serif style is used by Nicolete Gray to describe the qualities of the sans serif script as defined by the calligraphers Edward Johnston and Eric Gill. She is clearly not using the term "sans serif" in its narrowest sense (i.e., letters which are monoline and serifless, see Fig. 70) in her article on early inscriptionals. See Gray, "Sans Serif," p. 71 for her interpretation of the Johnston and Gill definition. The term "sans serif" is typographic in origin and was first used in the catalogues of British typefounders of the early nineteenth century when the first sans serif types appeared. See Morison, Politics and Script, pp. 5-8 and fn. 1, p. 8. For further historical data on sans serif letters see: P.M. Handover, "Letters Without Serifs," Motif, 6 (1961), pp. 66-81.
^ Gray suggested that there were three principal spheres of lettering activity—Florence, Rimini, and Rome. See Gray, "Sans Serif," p. 67. Ibid., p. 71.
9 Ibid., p. 67.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., pp. 69-71.
12 Ibid., p. 71.
13 Lowe, "Handwriting," p. 197, stated that^"Calligraphy is distinguished by harmony of style. It is conscious of the methods which it gets its results. Its forms are definite." 25
Chapter III:
A Stylistic Re-evaluation of the Lettere Antiche
In discussing the stylistic principles by which a set of letters might be said to be Roman or Gothic, it is necessary to consider the close stylistic relationship in which Gothic and Roman letters stand to each other. That relationship can be best understood by considering the inter• relationship between Roman capitals, uncials, and miniscules since the
Gothic capital alphabet is a fusion of those forms.
Uncials and miniscules are forms which evolved or "devolved" from the
Roman capitals through a naturally occurring palaeographic process (Fig. 54).
This process involves the informal proclivities of the writing hand.
Writing, although an art, is also an instrument of communication. When a scriptor is primarily concerned with the content of a manuscript, he draws on a kinesthetic sense to fashion—in a sense, automatically-—his letters.1
Once the letters have been committed to "bodily memory," it is possible for the scribe to be free of concern with letter shape on a conscious level.
But the employment of the kinesthetic sense or bodily memory, because it relegates the process of letter formation to a secondary level of conscious• ness, opens the way for the expression of certain proclivities peculiar to the writing process. The scriptor becomes more concerned for the conven-
2 ience of the hand that makes, rather than the eye that reads. Foremost among these proclivities are the tendency to round off angles, the tendency to fuse strokes by executing one curve for two or three straight lines, and 3 the tendency to curve straight lines. The letter forms which emerge are curvilinear in form and have become known as uncials. Speaking of uncialesque writing, the distinguished palaeographer , E.M., Thompson stated: 26
The second form of Majuscule writing employed as a literary hand for the texts of MSS. is that to which the name of Uncial has been given. It is a modification of square capital writing. As square letters were the easiest to carve on stone or metal, so was it more simple, when writing letters with the reed or pen on a material more or less soft, to avoid right angles by the use of curves. Uncial, then, is essentially a round hand, and its principal char• acteristic letters are the curved f orms ,.A c> ^- 7} (O 4
When the process of devolution is extended further, and the letters begin to exhibit also a concomitant diminution in size, the letters are known as miniscules.
The modern calligrapher and palaeographer, Father E.A. Catich, has succinctly written of the equivalence of semi-formal or informal writing with uncialesque forms. Catich expressed that equivalence as follows:
Speaking generally [sic] kinesthesis is historically important, for it is at the root of the devolution of majuscules that produced miniscules—that is, the kinesthetic changeover from formality to informality in letter-making, and kinesthesis explains the formation of semi-formal (Italic) writing from formal writing.5
Thus uncialesque writing is informal, and the distinguishing stylistic mani• festation of that informality is the presence of curvilinearity. Conversely, the distinguishing characteristic of formal writing is its rectilinearity.
Following the dissolution of the Roman Empire and for a number of centuries thereafter, the Roman-alphabet became transformed through the influx of a number of uncialesque shapes. That transformation occurred in stages, but eventually a number of uncials and the miniscule N were combined with less radically modified Roman capitals to form the so-called
"Gothic majuscule alphabet," an alphabet having a capital status and com• prised of Roman majuscules and a number of "devolved," informal forms raised to capital status. Roughly a third of the Gothic majuscule alphabet is comprised of "devolved" forms, and it is in understanding those 27
forms stylistically that the relationship between the Gothic and the
Roman scripts may be perceived. For the distinguishing factor between
the devolved and the antique letters is the relative dominance of the
formal, straight line. It is thus possible to judge the "antique" or
"gothic" character of a letter—and ultimately the tradition of a developed
script—by inspecting the letter shapes to determine the degree to which
the script exhibits rectilinearity or curvilinearity, formal or informal
shapes, as that antithesis is the essence of a tradition (i.e., antique or
Gothic).
Curvilinearity is increasingly practiced in the legs or supports of display letters from the eighth through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. During this period, the contour of letter supports became more strongly and consistently in conformity with the uncialesque style of lettering that prevailed (Fig. 66). Thus the legs of the letters slowly lost their architecturally supportive function and acquired a more two- dimensional design-oriented function. In short, curvilinearity in the down- strokes of display letters is a quality which is an adjunct to letter form, and, as such, is properly viewed as an important indicator of the tradition to which letters might be said to belong.
If the lettere antiche are now considered strictly from the'point of view of their linearity, the letters used by the foremost sculptors of the early
Renaissance reveal shapes which are remarkably consistent in their form.
They can be seen to belong to the antique tradition by comparing them to specific examples within that tradition, such as the Latin votive inscription of L. Aemilius Paulus (Fig. 37), or the Trajanic inscription in 28
Rome (Fig. 38). The curvilinearity of the Gothic majuscule alphabet
(Figs. 49, 67) has yielded to the rectilinearity of antique capitals. The neo-antique letters of the early Renaissance (Figs. 1-36) are almost identical in their character with the letters that characterized Roman antiquity until the advent of inscriptional changes in the seventh century.^
In the sixteen monumental inscriptions considered in this paper, only three instances appear in which the letters can be • said to belong to the Gothic tradition: two G's of Ghiberti, one in his Shrine of St. Zenobius (Fig. 10, in the word INSIGNI), and the other in his signature on the Gates of
Paradise (Fig. 27); and an E in the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (Fig. 32, in the 8 name PECCIO) attributed to Donatello and Michelozzo.
The group of sixteen also exhibits an equally consistent attention to the contour of letter downstrokes. Their consistent rectilinearity reveals that the letter supports have been formed in a fashion consistent with their antique shape. The only inscription which can be said to be a clear instance of an artist consciously forming curvilinear downstrokes is the inscription on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (Figs. 32-33, note particularly the N in DNO, the I in IOHANNI, the I in PECCIO, and the N in SENEN).
There are, indeed, other inscriptions which exhibit either a freedom in the formation of intermittent letter downstrokes, as, for example, the inscription on the altar of the Pazzi Chapel (Fig. 29, note the first I in the illustration) or an intermittent splaying of the ends of downstrokes, as, for example, the inscription on the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni (Figs.
20-21, note the I's in POTVISSE and MIGRAVIT). I suggest, however, that such scripts still retain the quality of antiquitas. Neither of the above instances, even though they exhibit a degree of artistic license, shows a conscious or intuitive intent to use firmly the curvilinear modulation of 29
downstrokes as a lettering motif as it is exhibited on the Pecci Tomb or,
for example, in a fifteenth century manuscript of Cato's Life (Fig. 41), 9
attributed by Charles Mitchell to a Lombard bottega. For that reason,
the Pecci inscription is here considered to fall outside the neo-antique
tradition of the early Renaissance. It exhibits letters in which one, but
not both, of the essential stylistic characteristics of the lettere antiche
are employed; that is, letters which are Roman in shape,but curvilinear,
instead of rectilinear, in the contour of their downstrokes. Such letters may be said to belong to a group of 'anticipatory1 scripts, like the script
of the Cato's Life (Fig. 41), which fail to exhibit all of the conventions
essential to the formation of letters in the neo-antique tradition.
Artistic license, however, must be seen as having exceeded its limit when curves become straight lines—as is the supposed case cited by Gray
in instances such as the wedge-shaped downstrokes that appear in inscrip•
tions like the Tomb of the Beata Villana (Fig. 17, note the N in VILLANE).
Thus the extension of the quality of curvilinearity suggested by Gray, to
the point at which the gothic splayed downstroke is supposed to have become a wedge (i.e., the gothic curve becomes a straight line), is clearly untenable even within the limits of artistic license.
As a rule, curves do not appear in the letter arms of the lettere antiche. So long as the contour of the lines forming the letter arms of the lettere antiche are rectilinear, they must—in accordance with the stylistic principle here suggested—be seen as Roman in tradition, whether or not they exhibit a modulated width of line. Modulated width of line, hereinafter called stroke-shading, is not "gothic" per se. It is only curvilinear modulation that can be cogently associated with the Gothic tradition. 30
In the few instances in which curves do appear in the letter arms of
the lettere antiche, they are confined to one of the two contour lines
forming the arm, thereby producing a serifed effect. For example, the
inner line of the lower arm of the E's in the inscription of the Tomb of
John XXIII is frequently curved (Fig. 2, note the lower arm of the E in
FLORENTIA). A similar effect may be noted in the lettering in the bronze
inscription for the Aragazzi Tomb (Fig. 3, note the E's in the third and
fourth lines). But, so long as one of the lines in such arms remains
rectilinear, the character of the arm is rectilinear.^" I submit that the
Gothic use of rectilinear stroke shading (Fig. 67, see the arm of the L in
the third line on the left side of the book) is simply an instance of the
Gothic employment of an essentially Roman or Romanesque motif.
In substance, on the basis of the stylistic argument given at the beginning of this chapter, I conclude that the lettere antiche were the
first genuinely antique letters of the Renaissance regardless of whether
or not they either look antique or can be said to duplicate a known antique
style. In addition, the lines of continuity seen in the lettere antiche by '.Nicolete Gray;—lines established by her system of classification—are
seen to be invalid through the application of that same argument.
A revised estimate of the lines of continuity among the lettere antiche is necessary for a proper and complete reassessment of Early
Renaissance display letters. To that end, an objective or neutral system of letter classification is now offered in Chapter IV, and used to classify
the lettere antiche in Chapter V. 31
Footnotes: Chapter III
Catich, Origin of Serif, pp. 141-142.
2 Ibid., p. 134.
3 Ibid., p. 142.
4 Edward Maunde Thompson, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1912), p. 102.
5 Catich, Origin of Serif, p. 144.
6 Covi, "Lettering," p. 3. The term "Gothic majuscule alphabet" was coined by Covi.
^ Uncials were introduced into manuscript writing in the fourth century A.D., and isolated uncial inscriptional forms can be found from the latter part of the second century through the latter part of the fourth century. See Thompson, Introduction, pp. 284-285. An examination of the inscriptional specimens in Ernestus Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae (Bonn: A. Marcus et E. Webber, 1912), p. 37, indicates a significant increase in uncial forms in the seventh century.
g H. Caplow, Michelozzo (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1977), p. 260, suggests that Michelozzo worked alone on the Aragazzi tomb (Fig. 3). If that is so, and if the lettering on that tomb is any indication of Michelozzo's lettering style, then it is hardly likely that the letter• ing on the Pecci tomb is from his hand. Nicolete Gray, "Sans Serif," p. 71, noted that the lettering style of the inscription on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (Fig. 32) is quite different from the style of the John XXIII inscription (Fig. 2), also associated with the names of Donatello and Michelozzo. Since, as will be shown later, the lettering styles of the John XXIII and the Aragazzi inscriptions are fundamentally the same, it would appear that the inscriptions on those monuments might cogently be associated with the hand of Michelozzo.
9 David Diringer, The Illuminated Book (1958; rpt. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1967), facing p. 346.
The extent and continuity of scripts such as those seen in the Pecci inscription or the Cato's Life (Fig. 41) have not been investigated. I do not rule out the possibility that they, like the lettere antiche, might be seen to constitute a coherent group of styles within a tradition which has not been defined within the context of this paper.
r 32
That "rule of thumb" is my own. Generally, it works quite well, but there is one situation in which a lapse is evident at times—that is, with the central arm of the E which sometimes has two splayed contour lines. See the E's on the Aragazzi tomb (Fig. 3). Chapter IV
A Classification System For Early Renaissance Display Letters
The Primary Principle of Classification: Formality
Both Nicolete Gray and Millard Meiss recognized the importance of formality in lettering. It was on the issue of formality that Meiss based his notion of a "palaeographic tradition." It was the formal, undecorated quality of the lettere antiche that allowed them to be legitimately compared with the modern sans serif style by Gray. Furthermore as noted in Chapter 1,^ Renaissance scriptors and scholars themselves used the quality of letter formality in distinguishing types of script on the basis of their cursivity—the formata, the corsiva, and the corrente.
The relationship between formality and speed was noted by E.A. Catich.
Father Catich stated:
Formal letters favor the need of the eye that reads, whereas informal favor the hand that makes the letters. Speed of writing then is a chief cause for the shift from formality to informality in a calligrapher's writing.2
As noted in Chapter III, the change from Roman capitals to the devolved forms of uncials and miniscules is a result of the informal proclivities of the writing hand. The relationship between Gothic and Roman letters is a reflection of the relationship between informal forms and formal ones.
Following the lead of those scholars, I suggest that the fundamental principle of classification of display letters is formality. Furthermore,
I propose that the three primary determinants of letter formality, in order of importance, are: letter shape, a factor which might reasonably be said to determine the tradition to which a letter belongs; letter execution, a factor which may be said to reflect the "manner of speaking" or rhetorical 34
mode in which the letters are executed; and letter cursivity, a quality which reflects the speed of execution and which might be called letter genre. These three divisions are the basis of the reclassification of the lettere antiche presented in Chapter V.
Tradition: letter shape
The principle underlying the identification of a lettering tradition— curvilinearity vs rectilinearity, informality vs formality—was given in
Chapter III. At that point only two traditions were discussed—the Gothic and the Roman. In the history of Latin inscriptional forms, however, two other traditions are indicated: the Etruscan and the Ottonian Uncialesque.
In order of their appearance, four changes of tradition have characterized the palaeographic history of Latin scripts: the transition from the
Etruscan (Figs. 60-61) to the Roman tradition (Fig. 62) in the third 3 century B.C.; the transition, north of the Alps, from the Roman to the 4
Ottonian Golden Uncialesque (Figs. 64-65) in the eleventh century; the transition from the Golden Uncialesque to the Ottonian Round Uncialesque— a stylistic variation of what we know as Gothic—which made its earliest appearance in Italy in the mid-twelfth century (Fig. 66);^ and the transition from the Gothic Uncialesque (Fig. 49) to the Roman in the fifteenth century.6
Rhetorical Mode: letter execution
Letters may be seen as belonging to either of two rhetorical modes— writing or drawing. Writing is that method of forming letters in which each essential part of each letter is made in one stroke.^ Drawing is the method in which at least one of the essential parts of a letter is made in 35
more than one stroke.^
Rhetorical mode may be determined by inspecting the shading of a parti• cular script. If no shading is present, then the letters, by definition, have been written. If shading is present, however, then its pattern must be considered to determine if the letters have been written or drawn.
Shaded writing is obtained when a writing instrument with a square-edged nib is used. It is sometimes called thick-and-thin writing because the process of writing with a square-edged instrument results in letters which have strokes of varying widths or thicknesses—the widest strokes being those which are formed at the same angle at which the writing instrument is held. Shaded writing is rational in that the same strokes, regardless of the letters in which they occur, are the same in width—a pattern which occurs because the writing instrument is held at a constant cant or angle to the line of writing.
Shaded writing, regardless of whether it has been executed with a quill, a pen, a reed, or a brush, exhibits contrast shading in its rectilinear members; that is, a variation of light and shade through the contrast of strokes of 9 different width. It also exhibits stroke shading in its curvilinear parts; that is, a modulation in the width of the individual curved stroke.
Rectilinear stroke shading—that is, a rectilinear modulated width of line used for rectilinear strokes (e.g., see the arms of the E's and the
L's in Fig. 7)—is a stylistic effect obtainable only through the technique of drawing. Drawing is also frequently characterized by consistent shading—as opposed to the rational shading of writing; that is, the shading pattern for individual letters does not vary, but like strokes are not necessarily the same in width. For example, the thin diagonal of the letter N on the Tomb of John XXIII (Fig. 2) is much thinner than the same stroke in the letter A, but all the A's and all of the N's are the same. 36
Similarly, the M's in the inscription on Luca della Robbia's Cantoria
(Fig. 7) have legs which, although they are the same downstroke, are different in width—a variation which in this instance is occasioned by the fact that the left downstroke is stroke-shaded. All of Luca's M's, it will be noted, are the same. Therefore his shading is consistent but non-rational. Luca's M's are of particular interest in that they are both contrast and stroke-shaded: the stroke-shading, as previously noted, being apparent in the modulated widths of the left hand legs; and the contrast-shading is seen in both the varying widths of the legs and the varying widths of the members of the diagonals forming the inner V's.
Historical changes in rhetorical mode have been as infrequent as changes in tradition. From the period of the earlier Roman inscriptions of about the third century B.C. to the nineteenth century there were only two changes in mode: the change from the written capital to the drawn capital, begun by the eighth century and crystalized by the tenth and eleventh centuries;"^ and the change from the drawn back to the written capital, begun at the end of the fifteenth century and crystalized by the mid- sixteenth century.
The letters on the Trajanicinscription in Rome (Fig. 38) and those on an Augustan inscription from the Roman forum (Fig. 39) clearly show the canonic, serifed, contrast-shaded capital of the Roman Empire. If the recent research of Father E.A. Catich is correct, it now appears that the
Trajanic letters, the scriptura monumentalis, before they were incised in the stone for permanence, were fashioned by the technique of writing with a square-edged brush."'"''' They therefore belong to the mode of writing.
The change in rhetorical mode from writing to drawing was particularly undramatic because calligraphers tended to copy the shape and shading of 37
the Trajanic letter while using the drawing technique."""' The ninth century
Carolingian capitals on the opening page of the Gospel of St. John from the Metz Gospels (Fig. 69) and the drawn Trajanic capitals in the
Benedictional of St. Ethelwold (Fig. 68, late tenth century) exhibit the subtle aspect of the first change in rhetorical mode which was to last for many centuries. Although the new technique of drawing implied the pos• sibility of freer forms, a certain conservatism characterized the early
13 efforts with the new method.
A conservatism also characterized the change in rhetorical mode implied in the reintroduction of the Trajanic letter in the latter part of the fifteenth century. The numerous treatises on the geometric construc• tion of Trajanic letters testifies to the belief that the Trajanic letters were thought to have been properly executed if they were drawn according 14 to certain geometric principles. It was not until the mid-sixteenth century that the great Vatican scribe, Giovanni Francesco Cresci, outraged his noted contemporary, Giovanbattista Palatino, by publicly suggesting that such letters might best be drawn freehand.15
Genre: letter 'cursivity
There are four genres to which letters might belong—two within the mode of writing and two within the mode of drawing—depending upon the 16 degree of cursivity which they exhibit. The four genres emerge from the use of four different techniques to form letters: penning, lettering, layering and outlining (Figs. 55-59, 72). Letters which are penned
(Fig. 59) are here called simpals; those which are lettered are here called inscriptionals (Fig. 72); those which are layered are called versals
(Figs. 56-58); and those which are outlined are called initials (Fig. 55).^ 38
Penning and lettering belong to the mode of writing. Similarly, layering and outlining belong to the mode of drawing.
Penning is a method of forming letters in which each essential part of each letter is made in one stroke by a relatively rigid instrument held at 18 a constant cant. Lettering is a more formal type of writing than pen• ning. In lettering, each essential part of each letter is still made in one stroke, but lettering is a less cursive process made so by the addition of one or more formal elements of technique. Such elements may include a frequent change of cant, the addition of serifs, or the use of a soft tool, such as a brush.
Layering and outlining are methods of forming letters in which the essential parts of the letters are made in more than one stroke. They differ in that layering is a more cursive process whereby the letters are built-up (Figs. 56-58); outlining is a process whereby letters are first skeletally drawn and then filled-in (Fig. 43, the initial N; Fig. 46, the initial A; and Fig. 55). Both layered and outlined letters have been called versals, a term which owes its origin to the fact that letters of that kind were commonly used during the medieval period to introduce or 19 mark the beginning of verses or paragraphs. In this paper, however, because of the need for a technical distinction between each type, layered letters will be called versals and those which are drawn will be called initials—a reference to the more formally drawn illuminated initials
(Figs. 41, 43, 46) frequently used in the medieval and Renaissance periods to initiate major manuscript divisions.
Beyond those primary factors, lesser factors may be said to constitute the elements of a specific style. Style is here conceived as a collective phenomenon, determined by those characteristics which unite and harmonize 39
members of the same genre, the most significant of which is shading.
Other factors, such as serifing, module, spacing, and cant, although of less significance than shading, are also important in harmonizing members of the same genre.
Since shading can be used to aid in the determination of tradition, rhetorical mode, genre,.and style, it must be used with caution by proceeding from the larger to the smaller divisions. In that way, errors 21 of classification will be avoided. 40
Footnotes: Chapter IV
Above, p. 7.
2 See Ch. Ill, n. 2.
3 Anderson, Art of Written Forms, p. 43. Etruscan characters can be seen on one of the earliest known specimens of Latin writing, the inscrip• tion on the Praenestine Fibula (Figs. 60-61). The letters are clearly highly rectilinear. The inscription is retrograde,. With the-text .reversed it may be .transliterated to read in. Archaic Latin: MANIOSME FECIT NVMASIOI, that is, Manios made me for Numasios. The change in tradition from the Etruscan to the Roman is evident in inscriptions dating from the third century B.C., as, for example, the inscription on the tomb of Scipio Barbatus (Fig. 62). The former highly rectilinear tradition of the Etruscan script became considerably modulated through the infusion of curvilinear elements in the B, D, R, and S. In the Etruscan alphabet the rectilinear letter form K was used for the sound we now associate with K and C. By substituting the C for the K, a major curvilinear element was added to the Roman alphabet. 4 Morison, Politics and Script, pp. 202-240. There was a period of intermediate change. The tradition established during the Republican period continued through the Imperial period, although there was a change in the way display letters were executed (later in this paper called rhetorical mode) that serves.as a palaeographic marker between the two periods (i.e., Roman and Imperial). The first significant departure from the canonical Roman (antique) tradition in inscriptional lettering occurred during the seventh and the eighth centuries (Ch. Ill, no. 7, for ref.) when uncialesque forms, which had been introduced into manuscript writing during the fourth century, found their way into a capital context in inscriptions. Inscriptions exhibiting uncialesque forms are particu• larly evident in the so-called "Popular School," one of the three schools of letter design said to have characterized inscriptional forms in Italy during the eighth and ninth centuries. These schools were formulated by Nicolete Gray in a study of Italian inscriptions of the eighth through the tenth centuries which she pub• lished in 1948. See Nicolete Gray, "The Palaeography of Latin Inscriptions in the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Centuries in Italy," Papers of the British School at Rome, NS .3 (1948), pp. 38-171. For the eighth and ninth centuries Gray delineated three distinct schools: the Lombard school, the Roman, and the Popular school (Gray, "Palaeography," pp. 78, 154-61 et passim). The letter forms of the Lombard and the Roman schools tended toward forms in the customary antique tradition, while the Popular school incorporated a number of uncial forms, among which can be counted the uncial forms of E, D, H, M, and U (Gray, "Palaeography," p. 79). The existence of the Popular school did not constitute a canonic change in tradition, but it did portend a major change which appears to have occurred north of the Alps simultaneously with that period now called the Romanesque. 41
Under the influence of the Carolingian renovatio of the ninth century, Popular inscriptions disappeared in the tenth century in Italy and letters in the traditional antique tradition continued throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries (Gray, "Palaeography," p. 159). Letters of the uncial• esque variety found a more fertile soil north of the Alps where they germinated and acquired a new authority as capital letters in the capital script associated with the Germanic kings of the eleventh through the thirteenth centur ies—the Golden and the Round Uncialesque. See Morison, Politics and Script, pp. 202-240. Both the Regensburg Sacramentary of Henry II (c. 1007, Fig. 64) and the Echternach Gospels of Henry III (c. 1043-6, Fig. 65) exhibit capital letters in the Golden Uncialesque tradition featuring the uncial forms of D (not seen in these examples), E, G, M, and U. It might also be noted that these examples exhibit the curvilinear modulation of letter supports previously said (Ch. Ill, p. 27) to characterize a change in tradition as it affects two-dimensionally extended downstrokes.
~* Morison, Politics and Script, p. 222. The Ottonian Round Uncial• esque made an early appearance in Italy about a century later than its appearance north of the Alps in an inscription commemorating Innocent II in Sta. Maria in Trastavere in Rome. Stanley Morison has suggested that the poor workmanship of that inscription (Fig. 66) was probably due to the fact that the craftsmen were unfamiliar with the forms which they were cutting. The lettering is very rounded—highly uncialesque. Of particular note are the uncial forms of H, E, M, T, D (with a left extended spur), G, and N. The letters of this inscription also exhibit a pronounced curvilinear modulation in their supports, stroke shading (see glossary) which features a radical contrast between thick and thin in the subsid• iary strokes of some letters (e.g., Fig. 66, the first N in line 8), and a high degree of serifing.
Thirteenth and fourteenth century uncialesque forms, called the Compressed Uncialesque in contrast to the Round Uncialesque, exhibit a compression in the letter forms (see Morison, Politics and Script, pp. 230, 232, and Figs. 141, 152; also, this paper, Figs. 49, 52), more elaborate decorative devices (e.g., flag-like appendages on the A's and D's), the use of hair-line serifs or extensions, a shift in balance in which one single letter support is dominant (especially apparent in the letters A, M, and N), and a radical contrast between thick and thin areas in stroke shading. The inscription on the Tomb of Cardinal Stefaneschi in Sta. Maria in Trastavere, although quite late in date.and:.somewhat extreme in its decoration (Anderson, Art of Written Forms, p. 100), is nicely illustrative of the form the Compressed Uncialesque had reached when the Renaissance reformation of script began with the scribes and scholars in the latter part of the fourteenth century. It should be noted that the Compressed Uncialesque did not cease to exist when the Roman emerged in the fifteenth century and the Roman capitals did not cease to exist when the Ottonian Round Uncialesque became a canonic script in the eleventh century. As late as the middle of the thirteenth century Frederick II (d. 1250) was using Uncialesque on his seal but Augustan capitals for other purposes. See Morison, Politics and Script, p. 244. 42
Catich, Origin of Serif, p. 11.
g Catich, Origin of Serif, p. 14 follows that nomenclature, although he uses the term 'filled-in' letter for a letter which is first outlined (i.e., drawn) and then darkened. A standard meaning for the terms draw• ing and lettering is by no means evident. Thus Nicolete Gray uses the term 'pen-drawn capitals' to describe some early Renaissance pen written forms and the term 'drawn' to describe certain Anglo-Saxon letters which were outlined and then filled in. See Gray, Lettering as Drawing, p. 5 and Fig. 1. Edward Johnston, Writing & Illuminating, and Lettering, pp. xiii-xv, 240-241 and Figs. 142 and 143 is unclear in his use of the terms. Reading between the lines, Johnston appears to believe that the difference between writing and lettering is a question of attention; that is, the degree to which a scriptor or artisan is concerned with the art of letter making. Thus all of the letters in Johnston, Figs. 147 and 148 (involving all ways of letter making) are said to be lettered.
9 Both the terms contrast-shading and stroke-shading have been coined by me for use in this paper. Letters which are stroke-shaded have at least one rectilinear member which varies in its width, while letters which are contrast-shaded have at least two rectilinear members which vary from each other in their width but which are individually monoline.
10 See n. 13 below.
11 Catich, Origin of Serif, pp. 158-183,
12 Gray, Lettering as Drawing, pp. 5-10 and Figs. 4-7,
13 Some early manuscripts exhibit letters with a free, drawn form, as, for example, Fig. 17 in Gray, op. cit., p. 21, consisting of letters in a manuscript written at Corbie, c. 800.
14 See n. 15, Ch. I.
Anderson, Art of Written Forms, p. 131; and James Mosley, "Trajan Revived," Alphabet, 1 (1964), p. 22.
The distinction is analagous to the distinction made by Renaissance calligraphers between the progressively more cursive formata, corsiva, and corente scripts. See above p. 7 and n. 8, Ch. I.
I have coined the term 'simpal' as a reduction of the term used by Edward Johnston to label penned capitals in contrast to those which had been drawn (i.e., versals or initials)—that is, 'simple-written capital'. See Edward Johnston, Writing & Illuminating, and Lettering, p. 123. 43
A slightly more rigid definition than that given by E.A. Catich for a written letter. See Catich, Origin of Serif, p. 11. Serifs, in the penning process, are essential insofar as they are executed as part of the essential strokes; in lettering, serifs are adventitious insofar as they are 'added-on'.
19 Edward Johnston, Writing & Illuminating, and Lettering, pp. 112-
Module is the relationship of height to width. Cant is the angle at which the writing instrument is held to the line of writing. See the Glossary for these and other terms.
21 Such a procedure would only be following the logic of classifi• cation. It might be recalled that Nicolete Gray used a shading factor (i.e., the curvilinear modulation of letter downstrokes) in order to determine style when that factor should have been used to determine tradition. 44
Chapter V:
A Classification of Fifteen Early Renaissance Inscriptions
It has already been argued in Chapter IV that the lettere antiche as a group belong to the antique tradition by virtue of the notable degree of rectilinearity or formality incorporated in both their shape and the linearity of their downstrokes. In this chapter, the group of fifteen early Renaissance inscriptions examined in this thesis will be discussed in terms of the divisions of rhetorical mode, genre, and style.
Rhetorical Mode
The presence of rectilinear stroke-shading in all of the fifteen remaining inscriptions—the Pecci inscription was eliminated in Chapter III as not bearing letters which exhibit all of the essential characteristics of the lettere antiche—reveals that the lettere antiche belong to the rhetorical mode of drawing insofar as they are all either initials or versals.
Genre
The two genres of drawn letters—initials and versals—are both represented in the Florentine inscriptional sphere.
To the genre of initials belong the following monuments:
Monument Artist Date Figure(s)
Tomb of John XXIII Donatello-Michelozzo 1422-27 1-2 Tomb of Bartolomeo Aragazzi Michelozzo ca. 1430 3 North Doors of Florentine Baptistry Ghiberti 1404-07 4-5 Luca Delia Robbia's Cantoria Luca della Robbia 1431-38 6-7 Tomb of Spinello di ^ Bonsignore de' Spinelli undetermined 8 45
Monument Artist Date Figure(s)
Shrine of St. Zenobius Ghiberti 1434-42 9-11 Shrine of the Three Martyrs Ghiberti ca. 1428 12-13 John the Baptist (scroll) Ghiberti 1412-16 14
Notes on the Monuments
Tomb of John XXIII: most letters appear to have been drawn with the exception, perhaps, of the arms of the E's and the bases of the L's which could have been drawn or layered. On the whole, however, the letters give a drawn appearance.
Aragazzi Tomb: the considerable two-dimensional extension of these letters along with the precision and regular• ity of the letter contours suggest, in this specimen, which is quite similar to the John XXIII tomb, a drawn technique.
Ghiberti1s North Doors Luca's Cantoria Spinelli Tomb all clearly drawn
Zenobius Shrine Ghiberti's letters on these monuments are much Three Martyrs Shrine smaller than those on the North Doors and much more Scroll of Baptist finely modulated. The best example for close, inspection is Fig. 11. The modulation is so fine and so controlled that a drawn technique is suggested. Millard Meiss believed that the letters on the Baptist were drawn.2
These letters appear to have been too carefully planned and to be too ruled and regularized to have been layered. One exception to that pattern is the quite rough-hewn L in FLORENTINI (Fig. 11).
The remaining monuments, which fall into the genre of versals, are as follows:
Monument Artist Date Figure(s)
Tomb of Leonardo Bruni Rossellino Workshop 1444-51 18-21 Tomb of the Beata Villana Rossellino Workshop ca. 1451 16-17 Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini Desiderio da Settignano ca. 1451 22-24 Gates of Paradise Ghiberti 1445-50 27-28 Tomb of Bishop Federighi Luca della Robbia 1454-56 25-26 Tomb of Giovanni Chellini ca. 1462 30-31 Altar of the Pazzi Chapel ca. 1429 29 46
Notes on the Monuments
Tomb of Leonardo Bruni a number of the characteristics of the letters of the Bruni Tomb suggest a built-up rather than a drawn technique: the limited two- dimensional extension of most letters (e.g., the L in LATINAS, the A's in MIGRAVIT, VITA, LATINAS); the limited modulation in recti• linear letter parts (e.g., the left diagonals of the A's, the arms of the F in FERTVR, the base of the L in LATINAS); and the curvilinear modulation in the arms of some letters (e.g., the lower arm of E in EST and the lower and upper arms of E in POTVISSE) which is quite similar to the effect obtained through the built-up technique (see Figs. 56 and 58).
Tomb of the Beata Villana the very fine and limited modulation in recti• linear letter parts suggests the layering or built-up technique. The modulation appears to have been carefully considered and executed.
Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini the letters of this inscription are quite close to being monoline. Layering, however, can be seen in the arms of the E's (e.g., see the E's in VATEM, SOLVITE) and especially in the cross bars of the T's (e.g., see the T's in SERVANT, VATEM, and the T in the ERAT in the third line, Fig. 24). Rectilinear modulation in the width of a stroke, although intermittent, can be seen in such letters as the second A in MAGNA (Figs. 23, 24, fourth line down).
Gates of Paradise represent a departure from Ghiberti's usual technique of using initials. Intermittent and finely modulated width of line can be seen in the E's of GHIBERTIS (Fig. 27) and ARTE (Fig. 28). Many of the letters exhibit Ghiberti's tiny serifs (e.g., the I's and the N in CIONIS, Fig. 27). Ghiberti's name seems to be intentionally "antiqued" through the use of a reversed N and a B with disconnected bowls.^
Tomb of Bishop Federighi this is a difficult monument to classify because, in some ways, the letters look like initials and, in others, like versals. The wide downstrokes and the clear stroke-shading of some letter parts like the left leg of the M in CUM (fifth line) suggest an outlining technique (i.e., initials). The limited modulation in most of the other letters, however, suggests a built-up technique. Nothwithstanding the contrast- shaded N's, there is a great deal of similarity 47
between the Federighi Monument and the Bruni Tomb (Figs. 20, 21), especially in the lateral spacing, the ligatures (e.g., AE), the module, and the forms of the G and the M.
Tomb of Giovanni Chellini The letters of this tomb have been seen as com• parable in design to those on the Spinelli Tomb (Fig. 18).^ I suggest, however, that the comparison is not a convincing one. The letters on the Spinelli Tomb clearly appear to be drawn initials, while those on the Chellini Tomb appear to be only intermittently layered. That slight layering can be seen in the arms of the E and the L in SEPVLCHRUM, Fig. 31.
Altar of the Pazzi Chapel The lettering on this monument suggests an excellence in the execution of letters in the built-up technique. While lively in design, each letter has been carefully layered with a subtle rectilinear modulation. The consistency of the layering is notable. It can be seen in its most subtle form in the rectilinear, but apparently unruled, modulation of letter parts such as the verticals of the N's and the supports of the M in QUEM (Fig. 29).
Style
Two styles can be seen to emerge within the genre of initials: a more formal style—here called the Perpendicular Style—characterized by a heavy stress on the weight of the major downstrokes and a greater stress on constrast-shading as opposed to stroke-shading; and a still formal, but more elegant style—here called the Tapered Style—characterized by a consistent emphasis on rectilinear stroke-shading in letter arms and in many supports. The emphasis on rectilinear stroke-shading yields a tapered or gently modulated effect which contrasts with the strong vertical stress of letters in the Perpendicular Style.
The Perpendicular Style is epitomized by the initials on the Tomb of
John XXIII (Fig. 2) while the letters on Luca della Robbia\s Cantoria
(Fig. 7) are classic examples of lettering in the Tapered Style. Nearly 48
all of Ghiberti's mature lettering is in the Tapered Style, a fact which can be seen from the further classification of early initials into styles as follows:
Monument Artist Date Figure
Initials (genre)
Perpendicular Style
North Doors of the Florentine Baptistry Ghiberti 1404-7 4-5
Tomb of John XXIII Donatello and 1422-27 1-2 Michelozzo
Tomb of Bartolomeo Michelozzo ca. 1430 Aragazzi
Tapered Style
John the Baptist Ghiberti 1412-16 14 (scroll)
Luca's Cantoria Luca della Robbia 1431-38 6^7
Shrine of the Three Ghiberti . ca.. 1428 12-13 Martyrs
Shrine of St. Zenobius Ghiberti 1434-42 9-11
Tomb of Spinello di 8 Buonsignore de' Spinelli
Notes on the Monuments
North Doors The vertical stress in these monuments can be John XXIII most clearly seen in the wide and heavy down- Aragazzi monument strokes of the M's and the N's. Stroke shading is limited to the letter arms and to certain oblique lines (e.g., the left legs of the A's). All verticals describe strong rectangles. 49
John the Baptist The modulated width of line, especially in the (scroll) verticals, is not easy to see in this photo• graph (Fig. 14). The letter which most clearly reveals the predominantly tapered technique is the N in the third line. Note the modulation in the width of both of its legs.
Luca's Cantoria Two of the most outstanding letters in this Shrine of Three Martyrs style are the M and the N. The formula for the M Shrine of St. Zenobius is as follows: right leg, an unmodulated perfect Spinelli Tomb rectangle; left leg, stroke-shaded with recti• linear modulation tapering upward; the central V, contrast-shaded with the left oblique line wider than the right. Both of the legs of the N taper, the left up, and the right down.
Within the genre of versals, two styles are again suggested: a more austere style—here called the Condensed Style—characterized by letters which are closely placed and an M with vertical legs (facilitating com• pactness) ; and a more informal, freer style—here called the Follie
Style—characterized by letters which are further apart, M's with slanted sides, and other characteristics suggestive of a greater spontaneity.
The inscriptions bearing versalsj I suggest, are appropriately divided as follows:
Monument Artist Date Figure
Versals (genre)
Condensed Style
Tomb of Leonardo Bruni Rossellino workshop 1444- 51 18-20
Tomb of Bishop Federighi Luca della Robbia 1454-56 25-26
Gates of Paradise Ghiberti 1445- 50 27-28 50
Monument Artist Date Figure
Follie Style
Altar of the Pazzi Chapel ca. 1429 29
Tomb of the Beata Villana Desiderio da Settignano ca. 1451 16-17 and an assistant of i Bernardo Rossellino
Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini Desiderio da Settignano ca. 1451 22-24
Tomb of Giovanni Chellini ca. 1462 30-31
Notes on the Monuments
Bruni Tomb As previously noted, these monuments have a Federighi Monument basic similarity (p. 46 above). They both have a fundamental formality which is obtained, in part, by a close spacing of the letters. That close spacing is facilitated by employing a letter M with vertical legs. The Bruni tomb, to my mind, appears to have been more carefully considered; the calligrapher seems to have been more attentive to the methods by which he intended to achieve an effect.
Gates of Paradise It is noteworthy that at the end of his career Ghiberti used letters for a major display purpose which were in form quite similar to those he used for a minor purpose at the begin• ning of his career (Fig. 15). Even though the letters on the hem of the Baptist are inscrip• tionals (perhaps even simpals) while the letters on the Gates of Paradise are versals, they are certainly quite close to each other. The words of this inscription are more formally compact like those of the Bruni and Federighi tombs.
Altar of the Pazzi Chapel The highly cursive style is facilitated by the wide-angled M and accentuated by the practice of telescoping letters (i.e., placing letters inside others). Also highly informal is the casual, almost spontaneous quality of the built- up technique.
Tomb of the Beata Villana The cursive quality of this inscription, aside from the wide-angled M, is enhanced by the attenuation of the letters (almost rustic in module), the high-aproned R, and the N with a 51
cross-bar that does not connect at the leg ends.
Marsuppini Tomb The letters in both of these monuments, Chellini Tomb although versals (note the E's and the T's in the Marsuppini tomb [Fig. 24] and the L in the Chellini tomb [Fig. 31]) are so close to being monoline as to appear as if they might have been written with a hard, rounded instrument. They come quite close to being formal inscrip• tionals as opposed to cursive versals.
These, then, are the groupings which emerge when the classification system developed in Chapter IV is applied to the lettere antiche. A final listing of the groupings and dating of the tomb monuments alone will be useful in following the conclusions which follow this chapter. The pattern which emerges is as follows:
Initials
Tomb of John XXIII 1422-27
Tomb of Bartolomeo Aragazzi ca. 1430
Shrine of the Three Martyrs ca. 1428
Shrine of St. Zenobius 1434-42
Versals
Tomb of Leonardo Bruni 1444-51
Tomb of the Beata Villana ca. 1451
Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini ca. 1451
Tomb of Bishop Federighi 1454-56
Tomb of Giovanni Chellini ca. 1462 52
Footnotes: Chapter V
x H. Saalman, "Tommaso Spinelli, Michelozzo, Manetti, and Rossellino," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 25 (1966), p. 159 suggests that the date of the Spinelli Tomb is not before the 1450's by connecting it with a 1458 catasto of Bernardo Rossellino and by associating its lettering with that on the tomb of Giovanni Chellini. It appears to me that the lettering on the Chellini tomb is quite different from that which is on the Spinelli tomb and I therefore question the dating.
2 Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," p. 99.
3 Krautheimer, Ghiberti, p. 4 suggests that Ghiberti couldn't write his own name. That suggestion is certainly questionable. He wrote it correctly many years previously on the North Doors and it is not likely that he forgot how to write his own name during the intervening period. Krautheimer himself states that Ghiberti "knew Latin and evidently read the ancient writers to some extent." See Krautheimer, ibid.
See n. 2, Ch. V. 53
Conclusion
The primary aim of this thesis has been to argue that early inscrip• tionals are antique; that is, stylistically akin to Roman letters preceding the fifth century A.D. The second aim of the thesis has been to show that the early inscriptionals exhibit lines of stylistic continuity by which they may be seen as genuinely calligraphic—exhibiting a harmony of style and a consciousness of the methods by which certain effects might be achieved."'" The artisans of the lettere antiche can thus be said to have achieved the minimal requirements of a calligraphic script.
Yet an impartial reading of the evidence also suggests that the critic's perception of change or experimentation within the lettere antiche* was not without some basis in actual fact. The real nature of that experi• mentation, however, may be perceived by considering the dating of the tomb 2 monuments which were classified into genres in the preceding chapter.
Inspection reveals that tomb and reliquary inscriptions bearing letters which are initials appear to have been executed primarily within the first three decades of the fifteenth century. They were followed in the 1440's through the 1460's with versals;. then, in the 1470's with geometricized, 3 drawn inscriptionals. Finally, in the 1550's, a century and a half after the appearance of the lettere antiche, there appears to have been a change in rhetorical mode—appropriate to the execution of letters belonging to 4 the genre of inscriptionals—initiated by Giovanni Cresci. In other words, the change was not primarily one of style, but of genre. That change suggests a searching by Renaissance calligraphers for the most appropriate genre with which to express letters in a new tradition such that a harmon• ious balance might be reached between the discipline implied in highly 54
rectilinear forms and the spontaneity that might serve as its balance—a spontaneity which, as they were eventually to find, might be achieved through a change of rhetorical mode.
The answer to that search, the solution to the question of obtaining the most balanced letter, appears to have been the Trajanic letter. Is the Trajanic letter, then, in reality, the "ideal" letter? The answer to that question is perhaps best phrased as follows: it is ideally balanced, not ideally antique. It can be said to express an unusually harmonious balance between formality and informality, discipline and spontaneity, restraint and freedom.
Renaissance artists appear to have more easily accepted the formality and rationality implied in their return to letters in the antique tradition than the spontaneity and informality needed to balance that return. They seem to have felt that the informality or spontaneity they intuited in the
Trajanic letters needed to be transformed, as it were, through the applica• tion of certain mathematical laws, so that the letters might re-emerge, transformed, from the more casual domain of the craftsman to the more formal realm of the artist.~*
The lettere antiche occupy an important place in the Renaissance picture because, in one sense, they reveal a desire to retain something of the former tradition, a rhetorical mode of lettering, and in another sense, that very quality gives them a degree of formality by which they might be said to be the most severe of antique letters. The rhetorical mode of lettering which served as a formal balance for the letters in the
Gothic tradition served, not as a balance but as a stress to the formality of letters in the antique tradition. The lettere antiche are at once reminiscent of the letters of the Gothic period and so severely antique as 55
to justify comparison with archaic sculpture. The excessive formality which they reveal may be taken as an indication of the zeal with which humanist artists and scholars redeveloped the antique tradition.
There are two parerga which I believe to be worthy of note in conclu• ding this paper: first, the light which this palaeographic examination throws on the so-called "problem of the Renaissance," the question as to whether there was in fact a Renaissance; second, the light which the inves• tigation throws on the relationship between the attention of Renaissance humanists to grammar and calligraphy and the emergence of a new historical vision.
There is a large body of literature devoted to the question of the reality of the Renaissance. While it is not within the scope of this paper to consider that literature, it is germane, to point out that from a palaeographic point of view there is absolutely no question as to the existence of a Renaissance, a period distinctly and radically different from the roughly one thousand years which preceded it. From a palaeo• graphic point of view, that new period can be characterized as one in which certain previously recessive calligraphic elements became dominant, finding their calligraphic expression in an emphasis on formality, discipline, rationality, restraint, and a stress on tactile consciousness as opposed to the operation of the "automatic" kinesthetic sense.^ The calligraphic evidence exhibits a concrete and undeniable affirmation of Jacob
Burckhardt's view of the Renaissance as a distinctly different period from the Gothic, involving a revolutionary new "discovery of the world and of man.
The new calligraphic process presented in this paper, which certainly must have been perceived by scholar-scribes, would have intersected in an 56
interesting way with the inclination of humanist scholars—from Petrarch 9 onward —to view the medieval years as a period of decline. The period of darkness was seen by them as followed by a rebirth in the late four• teenth and fifteenth centuries. That historical vision may well have been strengthened—and possibly even generated—by the extensive humanist con• cern and contact with grammar and calligraphy. The devolution of majuscules described in Chapter III need only be thought of as a "decline," a falling away of majuscules from their "ideal" form, for the 'Dark Ages' concept to arise. Much the same idea may be derived from a study of grammar in which medieval Latin grammar and Latin orthography are easily viewed as a "falling away" from the classical, "ideal" form. Instead of viewing themselves as involved in a synthesis or revolution—a new turn that would reveal another aspect of the same universe—Renaissance humanists saw their period as constituting one of rebirth from darkness into light, from decline to reform and regeneration.
Perhaps it is not too far-fetched to perceive the lettere antiche as manifestations of that shadowy period of change when there was yet a recollection and an appreciation of the way things were united with the dawning of a new, but complementary perception. If so, it is only to be expected that the life of all lettere antiche will be short-lived, for indeed it is uncommon for men to stand long in two worlds. 57
Footnotes: Conclusion
A paraphrasing of E.A. Lowe. See n. 13, Ch. II.
2 See p. 51.
3 See p. 9 and notes 14 and 15, Ch. I.
4 See p. 37 and n. 15, Ch. IV.
5 I am thinking here of the famous medieval dictum, "Ars sine scientia nihil est." See J.S. Ackerman, "Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan," Art Bulletin, 31 (1949), p. 100. The word "art" during that period is equivalent to our term "craft."
For a full discussion and bibliography on that subject see Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences.
7 See pp. 25-26, Ch. III.
g Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1948), p. 192.
9 Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences, pp. 10-18. See also T.E. Mommsen, "Petrarch's Concept of the Dark Ages," Speculum, 17 (1942), pp. 226 ff. 58
Figure 1: Donatello and Michelozzo, Tomb of John XXIII (1422-27); Baptistry, Florence (from Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, London, 1971, Fig. 58)
Figure 2: Donatello and Michelozzo, Inscription on the Tomb of John XXIII; Baptistry, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif and Other Experimental Inscribed Lettering of the Fifteenth Century," Motif, 5 [1960], Fig. 6) 59
Figure 3: Michelozzo, Detail of the Bronze Inscription for the Aragazzi Tomb (c. 1430); Montepulciano, Duomo (from Caplow, Michelozzo, New York, 1977, II, Fig. 72) Figure 4: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription Figure 5: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription above the Nativity and Annunciation to the above the Adoration of the Magi (1404-07); Shepards (1404-07); North Door, Baptistry, North Door, Baptistry, Florence (from Florence (from Krautheimer and Krautheimer- Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 28) Hess, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton, 1956, II, PI. 27) Figure 6: Luca della Robbia: Cantoria (1431- 38); Museo del Opera del Duomo, Florence (from Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea Della Robbia, London, 1902, facing p. 47)
m IN WNTE a m fv m
CYTHAK
Figure 7: Luca della Robbia, Detail of the Inscription below the Singing Boys on the Cantoria; Museo del Opera del Duomo, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 8) Figure 8: Tomb of Spinello di Bonsignore de' Spinelli; Santa Croce, Florence (from Saalman, "Tommaso Spinelli, Michelozzo, Manetti, and Rossellino," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 25 [1966], Fig. 6)
Figure 9: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription on the Shrine of St. Zenobius (1434-42); Duomo, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 78b) Figure 10: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Close-up of the Inscription on the Shrine of St. Zenobius; Duomo, Florence (from Goldscheider, Ghiberti, London, 1949, Fig. 112)
Figure 11: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Detail of the Inscription on the Shrine of St. Zenobius; Duomo, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 80a) Figure 12: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Shrine of the Three Martyrs (c. 1428); Bargello, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 76)
Figure 13: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Close-up of the Inscription on the Shrine of the Three Martyrs; Bargello, Florence (from Goldscheider, Ghiberti, Fig. 111A) 65
Figure 14: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription on the Scroll of John the Baptist (1412-16); Or San Michele, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, detail of PI. 11a)
Figure 15: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Detail of the Inscription on the Hem of John the Baptist (1412-16); Or San Michele, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, detail of PI. 11a) 66
Figure 16: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Tomb of the Beata Villana (ca. 1451); S. Maria Novella, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 96)
Figure 17: Desiderio da Settignano and assistant of Bernardo Rossellino, Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of the Beata Villana; S. Maria Novella, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 103) Figure 19: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Detail of the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni; S. Croce, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 50)
Figure 18: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Tomb of Leonardo Bruni (1444- 51); S. Croce, Florence (from Pope- Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Fig. 60) as --j Figure 20: Bernardo Rossellino and Figure 21: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Detail of the Inscription on assistants, Detail of the Inscription the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni, left side; on the Tomb of Leonardo Bruni, right S. Croce, Florence (from Schulz, The side; S. Croce, Florence (from Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo detail of Fig. 61) Rossellino, detail of Fig. 60)
CO Figure 22: Desiderio da Settignano, Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini (ca. 1451); S. Croce, Florence (from Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, Fig. 61) Figure 23: Desiderio da Settignano, Detail of the Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini; S. Croce, Florence (from Planiscig, Desiderio da Settignano, Wien, 1942, Pi. 23)
RA VATE/A
, H..>t. .*••;•>• * •E MVSAE '
:Q4« CHOW
Figure 24: Desiderio da Settignano, Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini; S. Croce, Florence (from Planiscig, Desid erio da Settignano, Pi. 24) 71
Figure 25: Luca della Robbia, The Federighi Monument (1454-56); Santa Trinita, Florence (from Bargellini, I Della Robbia, Milan, 1965, Tav. X)
Figure 26: Luca della Robbia, Close-up of the Inscription on the Federighi Monument; Santa Trinita, Florence (from Bargellini, I Della Robbia, detail of Tav. X) IBEK
Figure 27: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription below Isaac on the Gates of Paradise (1445-50); Baptistry, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 94)
Figure 28: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Inscription above Joshua on the Gates of Paradise; Baptistry, Florence (from Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, PI. 107)
Figure 29: Detail of the Inscription on the Pazzi Chapel (1429); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 11) IWJWUIXJLIUW^fcPVLCHPVM H
Figure 31: Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Giovanni Chellini; S. Domenico, S. Miniato al Tadesco (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 127)
Figure 30: Tomb of Giovanni Chellini; S. Domenico, S. Miniato al Tadesco (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, Fig. 121) 74
;;A/i::l:!ij);/;o.,).f( )MANNj ^Cao.^NEN.Ai3()<;TO. iSvPTOi '-PTARIO.EPO.G ^hShTAiK) . ()|>|:V! IT!.
Figure 32: Donatello (?), Detail of the Inscription on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci (1426); Duomo, Siena (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 10)
Figure 33: Donatello (?), Detail of Letters on the Tomb of Bishop Pecci; Duomo, Siena (from Gray, "Sans Serif," detail of Fig. 10) Figure 34: Detail of the Bancozzi-Catenacci Tombstone (dated 1424); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 3)
Figure 35: Berto di Lionardo Tombstone (dated 1430); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 5) 76
Figure 36: Detail of the Schiattesi Tombstone (dated 1423); S. Croce, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 2)
Figure 37: Roman Inscription (167 B.C.); Delphi, Sanctuary (from Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae, Bonn, 1912, p. 6, Fig. a) 77
S E NAT VSP< MPCAESARI DM NERVAEFNEJR^AE r R AIA N O-AVGG E RMOACICOPONTI F vi AX IM OTRIBPOTXVIIIM P VI COS VIPP VDDECLARANDVMWANTAEALTITVDINIS 4 O N S ETLOC VSTA^^^J
Figure 38: R.R. Donnelly Cast of the Trajan Inscription (106-113 A.D.); Trajan Column, Rome (from Catich, The Origin of the Serif, Davenport, 1968, Fig. 81)
Figure 39: Augustan Inscription (1st century B.C.); Forum, Rome (from Catich, The Origin of the Serif, Fig. 163) 78
Figure 40: Alberti, Detail of the Inscription on the Santo Sepulchro Rucellai (1467); San Pancranzio, Florence (from Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 18) 79
M DIGNITATIS ET CiLOKIE SVMPSIT A PROANO CATO
Figure 41: Initial C in Cato's Life, B.M. Add. MS. 22318 (fron Diringer, The Illuminated Book, London, 1967, facing p. 346)
Figure 42: Felice Feliciano, Inscriptional Scriptura Monumentalis (1467); above the arch of the central entrance of the Pescheria, Verona (from Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti e la rinascita del carattere lapidario romano nei quattrocento," Italia medioevale e umanistica, 2 [1959], Tav. XX) COIVCIO TVtM CANCFLUMO ROM UNO AMTbONfVS DC bAIWFFALblS IM MfcPJTVc3 PHI'MCVS FAVtNflNVS. ON iicrror cLinfTinie uir'ne me deeJocjiirmu .mnuf ur cjuonciim fetvwxhvciuul *6 rrum arxro TPnf.ltftr'rib; colo cjticndam .ilium pkyfic" in rjiud.i nry (eniltum crntk>Li .iba ivrmlTcrc txmuo (cr motif Ciraij-eb.tr. Quod imni ret hpftxertr I
Figure 43: Poggio Bracciolini, Laur. Strozzi 96, Salutati, De verecundia, c. 1402-3? (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of PI. XVa)
lOHANHl-PAre.XXIll. LE01 TIN VS. PfU>EMlV/W.lN.C N1S NimAcJiiem Uauflam* puurr fefcfut ru.< aetata rr mumifciiLi intend; l cjiiecLin cjvio « ilUf t*nai (cduraff cuf ^e«runr tvr .IUCJUA auxxxnCcyctx < Mic^i tutc i« ItcCTtttttu mec mine lot
Figure 44: Poggio Bracciolini, El Escorial N. Ill 7, Plato, Gorgias, 1411? (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of Pi. XVh) 81
Figure 45: Sozomeno of Pistoia, Bibl. Forteguerriana A. 4, Terence, completed 1412 (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of Pi. XXb)
C. v,'ALET U fcLASCl 5E'HHI 5A1B! HCON ItBEK-HH mCiPlTftllClTE
•Q^EAHOH OCVU5DI jttr ampuufec-uif. mforant.riatxc-;. rnoftTufa-a i unoni ardenn trtjpicU tjranif: V trtouA nunc tacito pedorc cgjiudiA no
Figure 46: Antonio di Mario, Bibl. Laurenziana, MS. 39, 35, fol. 48v, C_. Valerius Flaccus, 1429 (from Covi, "Lettering in Fifteenth Century Florentine Painting," Art Bulletin, 45 [1963], detail of Fig. 7) Figure 47: Massaccio, Detail of the Trinity, Inscription above the Skeleton; Santa Maria Novella, Florence (from Covi, "Lettering," detail of Fig. 25)
I AmiitnTTj pi rn * iq> WIMT tru ^
»' tdrb« ViHirvt JbXrii pJbUxMA €t intcrptJtiontHirrU*(jpiaH|u I Iptaunc -\ BAI fUi m
Figure 48: Rome, Bibl. Nationale, Sessorian Bible 3, fol. I v., twelfth century (from Garrison, Studies in the History of Medieval Italian Painting, II. Florence, 1953-62, Fig. 213. 83
(famHiwM WIBVH wm% mm VIMPJIU
lfl>Pft MORS R^PVFf HORWilW mWV?ft RlflflRMfl MeMyinrt)eDerfflfflAmiens ailwravsin OM PRGPvun etroQVTO iiwuvm ovi swales™ %6fllf€ P8JKRVS eR^ill ROmflR ^IlrtRfl^PRM "Oe^mflph^irasois JirMaRno (fflntome nnws KVVSIDIB hURIBUKe MIR KOnGlMRtifltflMS WO OSSA tcuuii MKIVS arame sieieuoRHi flaw
Figure 49: Inscription on the Tomb of Cardinal Stefaneschi (early 15th century); Sta. Maria in Trastevere, Rome (from Anderson, The Art of Written Forms, New York, 1969, Fig. 138)
Figure 50: Bernardo Rossellino and assistants, Inscription on the Tomb of Neri Capponi; S. Spirito, Florence (from Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino, detail of Fig. 114) 84
Figure 51: Felice Feliciano, Geometric Construction of the Letter H (from Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti," Fig. 5)
Figure 52: Domenico Veneziano, Detail of Fictive Inscription on the Madonna and Saints; Uffizi, Florence (from Covi, "Lettering," Fig. 40)
Figure 53: Andrea Mantegna, Signature on St. Euphemia (1454); Capodimonte, Naples (from Meiss, "Toward a More Comprehensive Renaissance Palaeography," Art Bulletin, 42 [1960], Fig. 18) H H HH h h—h A AAAXXa-a R RR Rl*"NT F FFf ff—f E E E e £ e—e TTTt t 1
Figure 54: Chart showing the devolution of majuscules (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 147)
Figure 55: Drawn letter (from Catich, Origin of Serif, detail of Fig. 15) Figure 56: Letter E with drawn support and built-up arms (from Johnston, Writing and Illuminating and Lettering, London, 1932, detail of Fig. 165a)
Figure 57: Letter S, built-up with a brush (from Catich, Origin of Serif, detail of Fig. 15)
Figure 58: Letter E, built-up using a wide nibbed pen (from Johnston, Writing and Illuminating and Lettering, detail of Fig. 165b) ANNO DOMINJUMTCCCVIII.A N I MIL-FT. DC .Vii
Figure 59: Poggio Bracciolini, Marburg, Westdeutsche Bibliothek (formerly Berlin, Preuss, Staatsbibliothek) Hamilton 166, fol. 162r, Cicero, Epistola ad Atticum, 1408 (from A.C. de la Mare, Handwriting, detail of PI. XVf) Figure 60: Praenestine Brooch (7th century B.C.); Luigi Pignori Museum of Ethnography and Prehistory, Rome (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 137)
toKAWVW^£IAlB4:3B343Wtfc)l\MW •I
Figure 61: Praenestine Brooch, a stylized redrawing of its inscription (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 138) Figure 62: Tomb of Scipio Barbatus, consul 298, censor 290 B.C. (from Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae, p. 4)
^ N ° P R £ S V M W J p J fi STV^ S u q R S v
Figure 63: Chart of Letters Found in Popular Inscriptions (from Gray, "The Palaeography of Latin Inscriptions in the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Centuries in Italy," Papers of the British School at Rome, NS 3 [1948], p. 163) Figure 64: Munich, Bayerischestaatsbibliothek Figure 65: Escorial Vitimas 17, MS. Lat. 4456, Regensberg Sacramentary of Echternach Gospels of Henry III, Henry II, illuminated title page, c. 1007 1043-46, Golden Uncialesque (from Morison, Politics and Script, Oxford, (from Morison, Politics and Script, 1972, Fig. 114) Fig. 117) ^ o •fWmaoiesqciB
wnnooenei' H'oeaooffloB OF 11,
Figure 66: Round Uncialesque Inscription Figure 67: Giovanni del Biondo, Commemorating Innocent II (dated 1148); Detail of Gothic Uncialesque Letters Sta. Maria in Trastevere, Rome (from Morison in the Presentation of Christ in the Politics and Script, Fig. 138) Temple (1364); Florence, Accademia (from Covi, "Lettering," Fig. 5) NPBJS CIP1C ERAI
Figure 68: British Museum, Letters from the Figure 69: Paris, Bib. Nat. MS. Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, late 10th Lat 9388, Opening Page of the century (Gray, Lettering as Drawing: Contour Gospel of St. John from the and Silhouette, London, 1970, Fig. 5) Metz Gospels, mid 9th century (from Gray, Lettering as Drawing Contour and Silhouette, Fig. 7) 93
Figure 70: Pavement Inscription (dated 1207); San Miniato, Florence (Gray, "Sans Serif," Fig. 9)
Figure 71: Detail of an Inscription in Sans Serif Letters on the Facade of the Pantechnicon (c. 1820); London, Motcomb Street (from Morison, Politics and Script, Fig. 179) 94
ABCDEFGHI LMNOPQR TUVWXYZ&J 1234567890
Figure 72: Brush Written Trajanic Letters (from Catich, Origin of Serif, Fig. 162) 95
Glossary of Terms
* indicates other terms in glossary
Related Terms
Majuscules, miniscules, uncials, capitals:
majuscules—large case letters: letters which have been written between two guidelines.
miniscules—small case letters: letters which have been written between four guidelines, the body of the letters occupying the space of two of those lines.
uncials —rounded majuscules*
capitals —majuscules having the highest status. Although it is possible for uncials to be capitals, as, for example, in the case of the Ottonian Golden Uncialesque (Figs. 64, 65), the use of the term generally implies a Roman, more rectilinear shape.
Penning, lettering, layering, outlining:
penning —a term coined by me to refer to the method of forming letters in which each essential part of each letter is made in one stroke by a relatively rigid instrument held at a constant cant.*
lettering —lettering is here understood as a more formal type of writing* than penning.* In lettering, each essential part of each letter is still made in one stroke, but lettering is a less cursive process made so by the addition of one or more formal elements of technique which may include a frequent change of cant,* the addition of serifs,* or the use of a soft tool—such as a brush.
layering —layering is a cursive* method of drawing* in which the letters are built-up (Figs. 56-58).
outlining —outlining is the most formal method of drawing* in which the letters are first skeletally drawn and then filled-in (Fig. 43, the initial N; Fig. 46, the initial A; and Fig. 55). 96
Initials, versals, inscriptionals, simpals:
initials —outlined* capitals*
versals —layered* capitals*
inscrip• tionals —lettered* capitals,* a term coined by me.
simpals —penned* capitals,* a term coined by me.
Contrast-shading, stroke-shading:
contrast- shading —a term coined by me to refer to the variation of light and shade within a letter through a contrast of strokes which are individually monoline* but of differing widths.
stroke- shading —a term coined by me to refer toithe variation of light and shade within a letter through a modulation of the width of an individual stroke within that letter. One letter can have both contrast-shading and stroke-shading.
Tradition, rhetorical mode, genre:
tradition —a term coined by me to refer to the largest unit of letter classification. It relates to letter shape, or the degree to which letters exhibit either rectilinearity or curvi-' linearity.
rhetorical mode —a term coined by me to refer to a secondary unit of letter classification (after tradition) which relates to the manner of letter execution (i.e., writing* or drawing*).
genre —a term coined by me to refer to a secondary unit of letter classification (after rhetorical mode) which relates to letter cursivity* (i.e., penning,* lettering,* layering,* or outlining*). Letters can be said to fall within the genres of initials,* inscriptionals,* versals,* or simpals.* 97
Single Terms cant— the angle at which the writing instrument is held to the line of writing. canonic— universally accepted and used as the standard. cursive— having a "running" or flowing quality. A cursive script is one which is less formal. Since the scriptor is more flowing in his technique, a cursive script tends to be rounded. Within the rhetorical mode of writing,* penning* is more cur• sive than lettering*; within the rhetorical mode of drawing,* layering* is more cursive than outlining.* devolution of majuscules—the process by which, through the demands of cursivity* and the function of the kinesthetic sense,* majuscules "decline" in size and "fall-away" from their more rectilinear, formal structure (Fig. 54). draft— that part of the making of an inscription which involves a preparatory plan on paper. It may be either a precise or a sketchy image of the planned inscription. early inscriptionals—a term coined by me to refer to the letters found in the highest quality Italian inscriptional work from roughly 1400-1470.
Gothic majuscule alphabet-—a term coined by Dario Covi (Covi, "Lettering," p. 3) to refer to the Gothic majuscule* script which was com• posed of Roman capitals,* and uncials* and miniscules* raised to a capital* status. kinesthetic sense—the "bodily memory" by which a movement or movements may be repeated without a special, conscious effort. lapicida— the individual who fixes an inscription into the stone ground by chiseling a V cut. The Romans maintained the angle of the cut, and therefore varied the depth. The Renaissance lapicida maintained the depth of the cut, but varied the angle (see Catich, Origin of Serif, p. 61 and n. 4, p. 286). lettere antiche—a term used by Renaissance artists to describe the letters they placed on monuments seen as having antique associations. In the latter part of the fifteenth century the term was used both for early inscriptionals* and for the neo-Trajanic* letters which superseded the early inscriptionals. Later, however, the neo-Trajanic* letters were known as lettere romane.* In this thesis the term lettere antiche is used to refer to the letters executed after the turn of the fifteenth century but before the advent of the Trajanic letters* (e.g. Fig. 7). 98
lettere romane—the Renaissance term for the neo-Trajanic* letters which superseded the early inscriptionals* (Figs. 40, 42, 50, 53). module:— the relationship of the heighth to the width of a letter. monoline— having the same width throughout. neo-Trajanic letters—Renaissance letters which became commonly used in the 1470's and were thought to be duplicates of the type of letters found on the Trajan Column in Rome. Neo-Trajanic is a modern nomenclature. The Renaissance artists knew them variously as lettere romane,* lettere antiche,* littera romana, antique caractere, or letra latina (Figs. 40, 42, 50, 53). ordinatio—the writing* or drawing* of the text of an inscription on the stone with either a brush or a firmer stylographic tool, said to be done by the ordinator who is also called the quadratarius. scriptura actuaria—a Roman letter, akin to the scriptura monumentalis* or Trajanic* letter, but more cursive.* It is also called a Rustic letter. Like the scriptura monumentalis* it is brush- made, but is considerably more attenuated in its proportions, having been executed by holding the instrument at a large cant.* scriptura monumentalis—a term which describes the monumental Roman inscriptional letter of the Empire such as that found on the Trajan Column (Figs. 38-39). squeeze— an impression made of an inscription either with a gel which is inserted into the letters and then allowed to harden or by using a kind of filter paper in the same manner by wetting it and then working it into the inscription.
Trajanic letter—letter such as that found on the Trajan Column in Rome (Figs. 38-39). 99
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