EXAMPLE 483
On the left is a reduced reproduction (from Reed) of Baskerville’s types used in a book of 1758, and on the right, for comparison, is the same matter set in Baskerville Roman, twelve-point size, introduced to America in 1917
EXAMPLE 484
The possible descent of Scotch Roman. (A) Baskerville Roman, based on Baskerville’s letter of 1758. (B) Mrs. Caslon’s “modern” Roman of 1796. (C) Scotch Roman, as we know it today
Bodoni Book.—When a representative of the Bodoni type family was selected for a place in the group of standard faces, Bodoni Book was chosen for its refinement and legibility. In its lower-case, especially when printed on other than gloss-surfaced paper, it seems to have more of the qualities of the best types of the Parma printer than does Bodoni, the first series brought out by the American Type Founders Company. Scientific tests have demonstrated that in the small sizes usually used for text purposes, type-faces with considerable contrast of hairlines and heavy strokes strain the eyes. The contrast found in Bodoni Book is moderate.
John Baptist Bodoni was born in Italy twenty years after William Caslon cut his first font of Roman letter. Bodoni’s subsequent career as a printer and typefounder doubtless resulted from his entrance, when eighteen years old, to the printing house of the Propaganda, in Rome. He began his important work in Parma in 1768.
The print of his books is remarkable for clearness, and in both type-cutting and printing he was skilful to a high degree. His types are not quite so regular in design as the recent Bodonis, and were given additional character by being impressed firmly in paper that did not have the enameled surface so much in use in our day.
His type-faces were a change from those previously used—different from the type-faces of Jenson, the Elzevirs and Caslon. The change was principally in the serifs, which were straight, thin strokes; and the general character of the letters was also distinctive. He used a few fonts in which the straight serifs were rounded by being filled in slightly at the corners, and these fonts probably suggested to Scotch, English and American founders the style known as “modern,” as compared with the “old-style” faces in use before Bodoni’s time.
The reader can compare for himself the resemblance of Bodoni Book to one of the text types of Bodoni as used in 1789. In order that the comparison could be fairly made, the Bodoni Book (Example [486]) was printed on antique paper and etched on zinc, as the original Bodoni page had been (see page [26]). This type is not only lighter, but other details are different from a 1790 type of Bodoni (Example [487-A]), which may have served as a model for the present-day type-face called Bodoni. Compare the capital Rs, and notice that the cross stroke on the lower-case t in the 1783 alphabet is low and distinct, while on the 1789 page it is high and joined with the upper end of the vertical stroke. The latter treatment prevails on many of Bodoni’s types, as it does on practically all type-faces. Excepting for the straight serifs, many of Bodoni’s types have some general resemblance to other Roman types of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In designing the present-day Bodoni, the typefounders gave it much of the “finish” in design that was given type-faces by Scotch and American founders during the nineteenth century. Typefounders seldom succeed in faithfully reproducing old type-faces, for the reason that they “correct the faults” of the old faces, and in doing so lose much of the humanistic spirit of the original. Were it not that the punches of some of William Caslon’s types were preserved, we would not have the true rendering of this old-style that we now possess. Modernized Oldstyle represents the Caslon face corrected and improved as the typefounders of the nineteenth century thought it should be. Some American founders, however, are making excellent progress in reproducing the spirit of old type-faces, and it is possible that we may yet have a satisfactory copy of the famous “silver” types of the Elzevirs.