The faithfulness with which Jenson’s type-face was followed in the designing of Cloister Oldstyle may be seen by comparing the Cloister alphabet (Example [467-A]) with the Jenson letters as they are found in Example [470]. A very interesting comparison can also be made of Jenson’s capitals, on page [14], and Cloister Oldstyle, in Example [473]. If a comparison of present-day type-faces with very old faces is to have any value, the present-day type-faces should be printed on antique-finished paper dampened if possible. And if the old face is reproduced by zinc etching from an old book the other type-face should also be zinc-etched. Printing and zinc etching were resorted to in the case of this example and in other instances in this chapter.
In some works reproductions of type-faces are valueless and misleading, for the reason that they have been retouched by an artist, redrawn, or cut in wood.
EXAMPLE 488
Modern Romans of the nineteenth century in three tones
The influence of the Jenson style of Roman was seen for some years, but in 1566 (Example [472]) we find a change of form. The type is more condensed, and instead of a diagonal stroke on the lower-case e there is a horizontal stroke close to the top of the letter. This style, as used by Paul Manutius in 1566, seems to have been maintained with little alteration in the work of Daniel Elzevir a hundred years later (Example [477]) and two hundred years later in the types of Fournier, the French founder (Example [478]). This style of letter was also used by Plantin, the Antwerp printer, in 1569, and for the interest there may be in it the reproduction of a bit of his work (see page [16]) should be compared with Example [476]. This last-mentioned example has been set in Cheltenham Oldstyle. However, ten-point capitals have been used with twelve-point lower-case. It may be that the appearance of most reading matter would be improved if the capitals were a trifle lower in hight than the ascending strokes of the lower-case letters b, d, f, h, k, l.
EXAMPLE 489
Modern Roman as it is used on many American newspapers. Six-point, seven-point and eight-point Linotype Roman No. 2. A readable but not a handsome type-face
The National Printing Office at Paris is using on some of its productions a type-face designed in 1693 by Grandjean. While it is greatly like other letters of that period, it has peculiarities, one of which is a slight dot on the left center of the lower-case l, a feature also present in the Black Letter of Gutenberg, and in the types of Fust and Schœffer (see inserts opposite pages [7] and [12]).
We have a key to the formation of the Roman types of the seventeenth century in the alphabets drawn by Joseph Moxon, an English typefounder, and published in 1676 (Examples [479] and [480]). These are here reproduced from Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises,” as reprinted, under the supervision of Theodore Low De Vinne, by the New York Typothetæ in 1896. Moxon says these letters are copied from the letters of Christopher van Dijk, a punch cutter of Holland. As will be seen by the scale in the upper left corner of Example [479], he attempted to show how the shapes of letters were “compounded of geometric figures, and mostly made by rule and compass.” Each letter was to be plotted on a framework of small squares, forty-two squares in hight and of a proportionate width. Passing up this idea as impractical, De Vinne said:
It is admitted that the characters are rudely drawn, and many have faults of disproportion; but it must not be forgotten that they were designed to meet the most important requirement of a reader—to be read, and read easily. Here are the broad hair line, the stubby serif on the lower-case and the bracketed serif on the capitals, the thick stem, the strong and low crown on letters like m and n, with other peculiarities now commended in old-style faces and often erroneously regarded as the original devices of the first Caslon.