Italic

 I have been teaching italic to both my classes this term and practising my own italic. I was given the most beautiful book recently 'Masters of the Italic Letter' by Kathryn A Atkins which contains this beautiful example of writing by Tagliente from 1491 complete with ink blot! This is the hand that I was referring to when trying to refine my italic for my Oxford coat of arms (still not finished!)

and this example from a writing book from Siena in 1545 by Bennardino Cataneo.

I had just downloaded the font Cataneo Lt BT to use instead of Monotype Corsiva when planning layout for commissions to be done in formal italic - to shorten the time taken by using a point size and expanding the font to match my own writing with various pens, particularly useful when writing long lists of names on invitations or place cards.

This lovely book shows examples of the same letter written by 22 different writing masters from the Sixteenth Century.

Ampersands ...

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