Lombardic capitals: the first Latin monospaced script

First, these may serve as a reminder that A.V. Hershey’s invention was not limited to basic roman text: he illustrated the technical principles of his “calligraphy for computers” across a wide range of scripts and symbols, extending to Japanese characters and musical notation. His Latin alphabets included three gothic styles, English (black letter), German (Fraktur), and Italian. The lowercase glyphs of the latter were constructed similarly to English black letter, albeit in a style harkening back to earlier gothic scripts, with forked ascenders and descenders, plus all spikes removed from corners for an overall smoother appearance. But the main difference was in the uppercase letters, which for the ‘Italian’ font were Lombardic capitals. The traditional term ‘Lombardic’ echoes the notion that such rounded gothic majuscules originated from Italy — which does not seem grounded in historical fact, even though they do appear in highly consistent forms in Italian books and inscriptions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Hershey’s designs were a personal and partly awkward interpretation, rather more Victorian than mediaeval. A Lombardic capital may be characterised as a mostly curvilinear shape enclosed within a square (or rectangle) materialised by extended hairline serifs. The interplay of straight and curved elements was modified in Hershey’s design by bending the straight horizontals, particularly the serif hairlines, thus further proving his point: the potential of segmentation for the rendering of complex curvilinear structures.

In a broader historical perspective, the tongue-in-cheek inclusion of Lombardic capitals in Minotaur may not be quite as paradoxical as it seems. The typeface as a whole is rooted in the technical constraints of early digital design, resulting in broken curves and proportions adapted to a number of set widths. Similarly, the construction of formal gothic scripts was based on a modular structure of homogeneous straight and broken strokes, so that letters of varying widths would combine into lines and pages of even texture. Lombardic initials, on the contrary, were meant to stand out against body text not only in size and colour, but also in shape. They were modular in a different way: not only constructed from similar strokes but also forced into identical proportions. This had a twofold advantage. In the workshop, scribes could leave uniform blank spaces within texts (often in two or more sizes) for rubricators and illuminators to fill in any initial regardless of shape and width, whether A or V, I or M. In the study, those colour or gilt initials provided readers with uniform signposts across the page, visually highlighting the logical structure of texts and thus enhancing readability — despite the scarce legibility of single Lombardic letterforms. Combined into whole words, as display lettering or even for painted or carved inscriptions, those shapes also showed a greater potential for decorative effect than for legibility.

Lombardic capitals were thus the first Latin monospaced script. In Minotaur, the widths are just slightly modulated. On the other hand a number of glyphs have been made closer to historical precedent than Hershey’s adaptation. The fine-tuned letterforms and proportions work remarkably well not only as decorative lettering, but also as initials for the regular lowercase, simultaneously standing out and blending in on purely typographical terms — even without colour or gilding. The juxtaposition would have surprised Hershey, but similarity in technique produces unexpected harmony in style. And the integration of old scripts into new patterns is one of the more fascinating processes in the age-old and ongoing development of the Latin alphabet.

Initially published in 10/2017 for Minotaur type specimen, ISBN 9791093578057.