Re: Typefaces influenced by lettering on maps

Deborah,

I can't contribute much to your enquiry, and I certainly can't
suggest anything for your bibliography, but perhaps I can make
an obvious point.  And if it is so obvious as to appear almost
insulting, I apologise.

We tend to associate "the invention of printing" with Gutenberg
and moveable type.  However, printing from engraved plates started
very soon after, and texts had previously been printed from wood
blocks: I rather like the fact that papal indulgences were one of
the genres mass-reproduced this way, and playing-cards another.

Engraving was much the favoured option for reproduction of maps,
because larger sheets could be printed thereby, on the star capstan
press, and the process was ideal for reproducing fine details.

One could not, however, use type with engraving.  Therefore the
use of lettering on engraved plates involved cutting each letter
by hand (and in mirror image).  In the Hollar examples you give,
such as the map legend in your second example, the variations in
the shape of the same letter in different positions is evident;
though not too obvious -- such uniformity as there was, and there
is quite a high degree of it, was achieved by uniform practice
by the "sculptor".

One can therefore say that the skill involved was a branch of
calligraphy, and its practitioners must have been calligraphers.

Just as Gutenberg in his type-making copied the black letter form,
and Griffo for Aldus copied the modified Carolingian hand that was
becoming fashionable in Italy (and also, the chancery cursive which
in England was callled "italic" by virtue of its origin), so also
did these C17 engravers mimic with their burins the shape of
letters made with the pen.

However, when I look at the bill of indenture that you offered us
for inspection, I would say that the flourishes are an engraver's
fancy, and I cannot conceive of a pen which could produce lettering
like that.  The bodies of the letters carry the kind of diagonal
emphasis which requires a chisel-cut nib, but the flourishes
require a flexible pointed nib, probably one made of steel.

And here, etymology provides a clue.  The kind of hand to which
my father was educated, using a flexible steel nib and ideally
as much cursive linking as possible (going back to "dot the i's
and cross the t's"), was even then called "copperplate".  So
handwriting informed the practice of the C17 engraver, but later
it was the engraver's style which influenced handwriting.

Conrad


>Café,
>
>I'm still working on C17 handwriting/calligraphy copybooks (which grow
>more and more interesting by the day!), and in the process, have begun
>wondering about the style of lettering used on early maps (including
>"coastal views").
>
>Then, as now, different scripts were intended for different purposes,
>and I'm increasingly curious about the evolution of "hands" used for
>early cartography and information design.
>
>C17 engravers such as Wenceslaus Hollar (who produced several maps &
>views) had a very distinctive hand -- now considered "austere" for the
>Baroque period in which he worked, as was Hollar's "visual style" in
>general.
>
>I've temporarily posted 5 details of Hollar's handwriting from his
>
>	"A curious new plaine and exact mapp of England, Ireland,
>	Scotland, and Wales, with the iles thereto belonging, and
>	cheefe citties, & maner of the streetes, never so commodiously
>	published before, described by I. S. & others, inlarged by G.
>	H. and engraven by W: Hollar."  London: Printed for & by Ro:
>	Walton, and are to be sold at his shop at the West end of
>	Paules, 1654.
>
>to my website for review:
>
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Hollar1654map_det1.gif
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Hollar1654map_det2.gif
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Hollar1654map_det3.gif
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Hollar1654map_det4.gif
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Hollar1654map_det5.gif
>
>Based on these, and other examples from the early modern period, it
>would be easy to over-emphasize a supposed preference for utilitarian
>vs. artistic scripts on C17 maps and drawings.
>
>The truth is, though, aesthetic considerations were still very much on
>the mind of C17 "mechanics," and engineers, and illustrators -- from
>all walks of life -- and even C17 form letters and other routine types
>of business correspondence were extravagantly modeled. See, for
>example, a sample business letter given in the 1619 printing of
>Richard Gething's _Calligraphotechnia_
>
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Gething1619_busltr.gif
>
>and a sample bill of indenture (yes, a contract for indentured
>servitude!) from this same copybook
>
>http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Gething1619_indenture.gif
>
>Unfortunately, the pages of Gething's copybook are badly stained by
>now (most of our extant copies were well-used by their owners) but you
>can still get a good feel for the style and content, even so ... and
>it is a far cry from business type today, such as Officina Serif and
>Officina Sans (and we won't even mention Arial ;-).
>
>The picture that is emerging from my research is -- as usual -- mixed,
>showing a variety of "hands" used for even the most perfunctory of
>communications.
>
<snip>

-- 

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