A practically unlimited number of other examples might have been included to show various capital forms of Renaissance letters; but the specimens chosen will adequately illustrate all the more distinctive and refined types of the individual letters.
Before, during and after the Renaissance movement many local and extraneous influences temporarily modified the forms of the Roman letters. There are, for instance, numerous examples of lettering in which Byzantine and Romanesque traits are strongly apparent, such as the free manipulation of the letter forms in order to make them fit into given lines and spaces. The drawing of the panel over the doorway of the Badia, Florence, [42], notable for the characteristic placing and composition of the letters, will serve as a case in point. This example is further interesting because it shows how the Uncial form of the letter was beginning to react and find a use in stone—a state of affairs which at first glance might seem anomalous, for the Uncial letter was distinctly a pen-drawn form; but it was discovered that its rounder forms made it particularly useful for inscribing stones which were likely to chip or sliver, in carving which it was consequently desirable to avoid too acute angles. The Roman letter underwent various salient modifications
at the hands of the scribes of extra-Italian nations. We find very crude variants of the Roman letter, dating hundreds of years after the Roman form had reached its highest development; and, on the other hand, some very beautiful and individual national variants were produced. The continual interchange of manuscripts among the nations on the continent of Europe probably explains the more conventional character and strong general resemblance of most of the early Continental work; but the scribes of insular England, less influenced by contemporary progress and examples, produced forms of greater individuality (see [46], [47], [48]). In Ireland, letter forms originally derived from early Roman models were developed through many decades with no ulterior influences, and resulted in some wonderfully distinctive and beautiful variations of the Roman letters,
though the beauty of these Irish examples can only be faintly suggested by reproductions limited to black and white, and without the decorations of the originals.
