The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering by Frederic W. Goudy
Chapter 4: The Development of the Roman Capital
EMERSON somewhere has said that "language is fossil poetry,"
meaning, of course, that just as some curious insect, a beautiful leaf, or graceful fern,
extinct for ages, is now bound up permanently with the stone & saved from the fate which
otherwise would have fallen to it, just so in words, the beautiful thoughts, the
imagination and feeling of men long since gone, have been preserved to us and forever.
Less figuratively, but even more truly, the earliest forms of the Roman alphabet were,
in very fact, crystallized and saved to us in the stone-cut inscriptions wrought by the
Greeks of yesterday, and those shapes, transplanted by the early Chalcidian Greek
colonists into Italy, provide the imnlediate sources of the alphabet we know and use today.
Figure 11. PROPORTIONS
OF ROMAN CAPITALS. FROM DRAWINGS BY DÜRER.
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From a tablet dug up at Sigeum, a promontory near the site of ancient Troy [discovered
by William Sherard, then English consul at Smyrna], we have in early Greek characters
probably the oldest literal inscription extant. The writing on it discloses an
interesting deviation from the usual custom of most of the Eastern nations: the
first line, beginning at the left, reads to the right, the following line commences
at the right and runs to the left, and the characters are likewise reversed, each
line beginning at the side at which the preceding line ends, and so on. Probably
this method of writing, called boustrophedon,* was in vogue but for a short time,
as an inscription on the base of the Colossus at Delos and also an inscription on
* As an ox turns at the
end of the furrow in ploving. Bous, ox; strophe turning.
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one of the Tripods at Thebes, both practically contemporary with the Sigean fragment,
read from left to right only. The letters are cut on a pillar of white marble, nine
feet high, two feet wide, and eight inches thick, which quite probably
supported a bust or statue of Hermocrates, whose name appears in the text of the inscription.
The writing itself presents a specimen nearly three thousand years old.
In the British Museum there is a brass sIgnet, found near Rome, the
appearance of which indicates very great age. The signet probably was
intended for stamping or printing its owner's signature on documents
that were written on parchment or other substance used for receiving writing.
On its face, which is about two inches in length and four-fifths of an inch wide,
letters of good proportion [in reverse] are engraved in relief within a border line
or rim.
Figure 12.
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A ring, which serves as a handle, is attached to the back of the plate. The letters are capitals
huddled together with little punctuation, in the usual style of the old Roman inscriptions.
They spell "CICAECILI HERMIAS.SN.,' or, as we would print it today,"C.J. CAECILI HERMIAE SIGNUM,'
which translated is, "The seal of Caius Julius Caecilius Hennias." Of
Hermias himself we know almost nothing. He used the signet to save himself the trouble of
writing, or possibly to hide his inability to write. The stamp quite plainly was intended
for printing or stamping on materials used for writings rather than for impressions in
wax or metal and is significant in this connection as prefiguring the art of printing
that was to come many years later. That it was intended for printing is indicated by
the fact that the background or
FIG. 13 SIGNET OF CAIUS JULIUS CAECILIUS HERMIAS
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field, that is, the part cut away to leave the border and letters in relief, is very
rough and uneven in depth, while the letters and the border line are smooth and
exactly the same height. An impression of this sigil in wax would produce letters
sunk below the surface of the plastic material, & the raised surface around them
would be rough while the raised surface that would show when impressed would,
of course, be smooth in a seal engraved for impressions in wax.
Continue to page 2
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The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering
by Frederic W. Goudy
Introduction
What Letters Are
Letters in General
The Development of the Roman Capital
Letters Before Printing
The National Hands
The Development of Gothic
The Beginnings of Types
The Qualities of Lettering
Some Practical Considerations
Notes on the Plates
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