Early ‘non-Jensonian’ Venetian romans
A carefully illustrated review of 1470s types based on humanistic hands but differing a great deal from Jenson
This article is based on a talk I gave in Nancy last spring. At the end of April 2019 the ANRT (the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique) organised a two-day symposium and an exhibition under the title ‘Gotico-Antiqua, Proto-Roman, Hybrid. 15th-century types between gothic and roman’.
The event introduced a project of research, lead by Jérôme Knebusch, designer and teacher at the ANRT, based on the analysis of some early types that appeared in Germany, Italy and France in the 1460s and 1470s.
The ANRT’s project aimed to shed some light on this ‘relatively understudied period’ of the early phase of European typography
These types have a common characteristic: they are all difficult to classify with our present categories. As explained in the presentation of the project, the types taken into account were neither fully roman nor fully gothic including ‘many cases of uncertain or experimental design, voluntary hybridisation and proto- or archaic roman’.
The project aimed to shed some light on this ‘relatively understudied period’ of the early phase of European typography and to produce digital revivals of these unclassifiable types. Two researchers were involved in the project, under the guidance of Knebusch and through several workshops held in different design schools across France and Germany they were able to produce 15 typefaces and a set of initials based on an accurate analysis of the sources. The result was presented during the symposium and published online, as Open Source fonts, available for commercial use.
The symposium included several European researchers from the fields of typography, palaeography and incunabula studies, and the talks were generally of a high standard. Not surprisingly, my talk was about the influence of Jenson on the design of romans: as I have been repeating this mantra for some years, today if I say ‘Jenson’ at home people start screaming. However, I decided to take a step further, also as token of appreciation of the ANRT research group for the variety of designs that they have come up with. To show more clearly Jenson’s innovation, I introduced some Venetian types of the early 1470s — cut shortly after Jenson’s roman — based on humanistic hands but differing a great deal from Jenson.[1]
In the early 1470s several Venetian books were printed with types that show features and letterforms that have little to do with Jenson
As I tried to explain in my previous articles (The success of the Jenson roman and Jenson’s influence on the design of romans), with regard to lowercase letterforms, Jenson defined the standard for proportions, details and, most importantly, for the overall design of certain letters — a, g and h, but also b, c, e, f, r, s and others. But in the early 1470s several Venetian books were printed with types that show features and letterforms that have little to do with Jenson. All these types had short lives (some appear in only one extant edition) and were seldom employed in more than one printing office. Clearly they were eschewed by contemporaries.
Now I am going to introduce some of these peculiar types, which look bizarre to a reader’s eyes today but they reflect the many diversities that different hands, all considered humanistic, could display in the 15th century before printing was introduced. [2]
The first type I want to introduce is Patavinus 106R (1471, above). It is a squarish and broad type that was employed by Clemens Patavinus, a Paduan priest described in contemporary documents as teacher, scribe, miniaturist, and ‘first among the Italians’ (Italorum primus) to enter the printing business.[3]
Patavinus’s roman shows huge differences in the width of the capitals. The serif formation is quite different from that of Spira and Jenson
In his preface to the 1471 Mesue — the only edition that is undoubtedly attributed to Patavinus –[4] the physician Nicolaus Gupalatinus praised Patavinus’s excellence in the mechanical arts and claimed that he learned the technique of type-making and printing by himself.[5] Patavinus’s roman shows huge differences in the width of the capitals with very narrow B, E and S while round letters like C, D, G, O are very wide. The serif formation is quite different from that of Spira and Jenson: h, m and n have baseline serifs on the outside only; b and d seem to have bilateral serifs at the top of the ascenders and notably letter t has a lapidary serif at the bottom instead of the usual hook. Finally, the books display two shapes of g: the most common of which overhangs at the bottom (vertical kerning) as it is deeper than the other descending letters. But when a letter with an ascender (b, d, h, l) is placed on the following line right below g there is not enough room for both the letters, thus another sort of g — smaller and without an overhanging descender — is employed, as shown below.
The same type is found at the first press of Jacobus de Fivizzano, a Tuscan printer who in 1472 opened an office in his hometown, Fivizzano.[6] He employed this type, also measuring 106 millimetres, in five of his editions, printed in the following two years (Fivizzano 106R). There are some tiny differences between the two types, such as letter g. Patavinus’s g which overhangs at the bottom does not appear in Fivizzano’s books, where only Patavinus’s shorter g (which appeares much less frequently in Patavinus’s book) is shown. Being the only known printer who employed this type other than Patavinus himself, historians have hypothesised that before printing on his own in Tuscany, Jacobus had worked in Patavinus’s office in Venice, where he acquired the type. However around 1475 Jacobus moved to Venice where he furnished his new press with the Jenson roman, while Patavinus’s type does not seem to have been employed elsewhere.
Another peculiar type design that appeared in 1471 is the so-called Press of Ausonius 115R (above),[7] a heavy, round, and highly contrasted type found in seven unsigned editions. These editions were gathered together in BMC, due to the type in which they were set, but we can see a progressive substitution of most of the uppercase set throughout the books (letters A, C, E, M, N, P, R), a sign that this group of seven editions might have come from more than one printing office. However, the lowercase looks consistent in all the editions and displays some idiosyncratic letterforms.
Letter r displays a swing terminal that resembles a wave
Letter a has an epigraphic serif at the baseline instead of the usual hook, e has a complex construction with a central thin horizontal bar separated from the lower part of the bowl that ends with a small blob. The upper and lower parts of letter g are stretched and contain circular counters that are centred vertically and joined by a thick and slightly arched link; finally letter r displays a swing terminal that resembles a wave — although in most of its printed samples such a complex shape appears to be too dark, probably obstructed by superfluous ink.
Similar peculiarities in the same lowercase letters are found in Press of Basilius 116R (1471, above), a light, rounded type with little contrast and with uneven letter spacing.[8] Letters h, n, u are notably narrow while the round letters b, c, d, e, o, p, q are wide and based on a circle. Serifs mostly follow the usual construction with some idiosyncracies such as in letter r where the baseline serif extends widely to the right of the stem.
M is small, compact, with vertical stems and bilateral serifs on top, it looks like a poor parody of Jenson’s M
The capitals show design inconsistencies because some letters are smaller and others are too compressed compared with the rest. Notably, M is small, compact, with vertical stems and bilateral serifs on top, it looks like a poor parody of Jenson’s M; even letter R badly mimics Jenson, with a similar but much longer tail. Finally a few words should be spent on the Press of Basilius’s e, with its thin, horizontal ‘tongue’ that extends much further to the right than the bowl, a feature already seen in Press of Ausonius’s e and, albeit to a much lesser extent, in many other Renaissance types including the Jenson roman. These extended strokes (slight in Jenson and prolonged in the Press of Basilius) are often missing in the printed marks left by sorts of e, indicating that it must have been fragile and easily broken with continuous use.
Ambergau 116R (1472, above) is also remarkable as a wide, round and highly contrasted type design that probably gained some success because it was employed by different printers including — so it was believed — Johannes de Westfalia, a printer who worked in far-away Leuven, near Brussels.[9]
Ambergau employed this type only in his 17th and last edition
The main feature of this type is probably the exceedingly inclined angle of stress in the round letters; moreover in letter o the stress is in the opposite direction compared with that of the other letters, so that some problems occur when letter o is next to other round letters in pairs like bo, oc, od, op. This o with opposite contrast was dropped by the presses that used this type after Ambergau: their o is a mirrored version of Ambergau’s o and it was achieved by cutting a new punch (fig. 6). Finally Ambergau 116R mostly follows the usual serif formation — as with Spira and Jenson — with pen-driven serifs in the lowercase (thus on top of b, d, h, i, l, m, n, p, r) consisting of oblique straight strokes. Notably, such a shape of serif is also placed at the top of the left stem of u.
According to the extant books, after having printed 16 editions with the Jenson roman (called Ambergau 113R) Ambergau employed this type only in his 17th and last edition.[10] A hypothesis of what might have happened follows: Ambergau started the business with a limited investment, purchasing an existing type available on the market — the Jenson roman. Only later, when his firm might have been flourishing, he decided to furnish his presses with a new type, even though his venture was destined to disappear in the following months during the 1473 crisis.[11]
It seems that Westfalia employed a close imitation of the Ambergau roman
Ambergau stopped printing but the same type is found in books printed by other Venetian printing offices. It was used by the German printer Florentius de Argentina in several of his editions printed in 1472–1473 (Argentina 119R),[12] then by Leonhardus and Hans Aurl in one edition each, and finally in an unsigned Fiore novello that has not yet been attributed to any press.[13]
Finally, as mentioned, bibliographers claimed that this type was employed by Johannes de Westfalia in Leuven in the early 1480s (Westfalia 120R): but this is not confirmed by type analysis. Comparisons between Westfalia’s and Ambergau’s letterforms show that, although following the same design, the two types do not come from the same punches. As shown above, the same letters display structural differences from one type to another which, however small, point to this conclusion. It seems that Westfalia employed a close imitation of the Ambergau roman, cut by a skillful punchcutter who aimed to imitate Ambergau letter by letter. However, more research is needed on this type.
Other peculiar letterforms are found in Press of Antoninus 115R and Press of Cornazzano 116R (rispectively above and below). Both these types appear in only one edition each, both are dated 1472; both the editions display types that look untidy, perhaps worn, and the press work is without exceptions rough and poor.
Some capitals in the Press of Antoninus show an uncommon design, possibly deriving from Romanesque inscriptions
Moreover, the type of the Press of Antoninus displays a mix of capitals, clearly coming from two distinct types, implying that this rough type may be an assemblage of different types, a makeshift, perhaps cobbled together for the occasion. In both the editions the quality of printing is too low for a detailed analysis; however some capitals in the Press of Antoninus show an uncommon design, not seen in other Venetian romans and possibly deriving from Romanesque inscriptions. Namely capital R with a wavy tail, wide E with vertical serifs and wide S with a diamond shape in the middle.
Save for a very few exceptions it seems that the new romans were modelled on existing types rather than manuscripts
After the early 1470s, the wide variety of letterforms we have seen in the examples above started withering out; the new roman types cut in Venice tended towards a homogeneity of design. Save for a very few exceptions — such as Miscomini 78R (below) which appeared in 1476, and Girardengus 85R (further below) in 1479 — it seems that the new romans were modelled on existing types rather than manuscripts. The most frequently imitated was, needless to say, Jenson. The Jenson roman soon became a model to follow for punchcutters, first in Italy and then Europe. For decades it was the ‘summer hit’, no type could compete with it; until the 1530s Jenson was the big rockstar of the time, the Beatles of Renaissance typeface design.
This should give further weight to Jenson’s innovation of rendering letterforms from the humanistic hand that had to become the standard
However, this has already been claimed and explained. What I find important in the early types discussed here — types that were cut soon after Jenson by anonymous punchcutters — is that when compared with Jenson’s we see how some lowercase letters can look significantly different from the same letters we find in Jenson. This should give further weight to Jenson’s innovation of rendering letterforms from the humanistic hand that had to become the standard, while his peers where playing around with letterforms bound to be forgotten.
After having said that my debts with Nicolas have been paid in full and I can finally stop talking about how cool he was.
This topic has been addressed in an appendix of my PhD thesis, which was delivered in July 2019 under the title A new method of analysing printed type: the case of 15th-century Venetian romans. The term ‘non-Jensonian’ I included in the title of this article, which I find brilliant, was suggested by my friend James Clough, who as usual I have to thank for tinkering with my English.
Endnotes
[1] I would rather not call this group of early types ‘romans’ because some of them — actually just a few — could not be considered fully roman, due to the shape of the serifs in lowercase letters. For a clear definition of roman type I refer to Harry Carter, as discussed in my previous article ‘The Venetian origin of roman type’.
[2] Two great scholars of humanistic script, J. J. G. Alexander and Albinia de la Mare, remarked that a closer look at any group of humanistic manuscripts coming from varied sources reveals the daunting variety of scripts that can be gathered under the convenient “humanistic” mantle’. Alexander & de la Mare, The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J. R. Abbey (Faber and Faber, London, 1969), p. xxii.
[3] For information on this printer see the entry ‘Clemente da Padova’ by Valentino Romani in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 26 (1982). Today we know that any claim that Patavinus was the first Italian to open a printing office is unfounded, as Filippo di Lavagna in Milano and perhaps others in Rome started printing before him.
[4] Mesue, Opera medicinalia. [Venice]: Clemens Patavinus, [not before 18 May 1471] (im00508000). The book was not signed but Clemens’s name appears at the end of the preface. Another edition printed with this type that has survived in a single copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris is attributed to Patavinus: Aurelius Augustinus, De virtute psalmorum. [Venice: Clemens Patavinus], 26 Mar. 1471 (ia01348300).
[5] In his prefatory letter Gupalatinus wrote that Patavinus ‘picked up some of the art of printing by intelligent observation and perfectly figured out the rest on his own’. See Mary A. & Richard H. Rouse, ‘Nicolaus Gupalatinus and the arrival of print in Italy’, La Bibliofilia, 88 (1986) pp. 225–226.
[6] For more information see the entry ‘Jacopo da Fivizzano’ by Serena Veneziani in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 62 (2004).
[7] On TW (Typenrepertorium der Wiegendrucke) this type is recorded under two entries: type 1:115R and type 2:115R of the ‘Drucker des Ausonius (GW 3090)’.
[8] ISTC records 12 unsigned editions under this anonymous press, all set in this type. None of them includes the place of printing, but Proctor attributed them to Venice because some copies display a woodcut border similar to those found in early Venetian books. See Victor Scholderer (ed.), Catalogue of books printed in the XVth century now in the British Museum (BMC) V: Venice (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1924), p. xi.
[9] See for instance L. A. Sheppard (ed.), BMC IX: Holland and Belgium (1962), p. 141.
[10] A brief biography, although dated by now, it is found at the entry ‘Adamo di Ambergau’ by Anita Mondolfo in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 1 (1960).
[11] The impressive growth of printing offices in Venice in 1471–1472 created a surplus of books, mostly classics, which the market was unable to absorb. Thus in 1473 there was a strong downturn, the count of Venetian books plummeted and half of the printing offices active the previous year ceased operating, including major outfits like Valdarfer. The whole story is told in Victor Scholderer, ‘Printing at Venice to the End of 1481’ in Scholderer, Fifty Essays in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Bibliography (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, 1966), p. 78.
[12] ’Argentina’ was the Italian name for Strasbourg. ISTC attributes him with 16 editions (1 signed and 15 attributed), all printed with this type.
[13] The types are Leonhardus Aurl 116R, 1473 and Hans Aurl 116R, 1474. The edition printed in unassigned type is Fiore novello estratto dalla Bibbia.[Venice? : n.pr.], 20 Aug. 1473 (if00171250). This edition survived in one copy which is now at the Hunterian Library of Glasgow.
