Writing the Renaissance

            Originally the renaissance was the time during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when Greek and Roman literature was reborn and looked at in a new light. Literally meaning “rebirth” or “revival” we now refer to the Renaissance as the time period taking up the space in between the medieval period and modern times. It was during this time that the writing of books and literature underwent much transformation, becoming faster to produce with the invention of the printing press.

            Originating in Venice the printing press saw much attention by printers, type designers such as goldsmith Johannes de Spira, authors, and artists who all worked together in close collaboration to print books during this time. Although he claimed originality and kept the rights, Johannes typefaces closely resembled Sweynheym and Pannartz. His monopoly over printing ended with his death which opened the way for upcoming type casters such as Nicolas Jenson, who published over 150 books and designed popular Greek, Gothic and Roman types.

            As I mentioned in my previous essay graphic design is the collaboration between art and typography, and is used in the modern world for advertisements. During the Renaissance however I would argue that printing was a new found form of graphic design. Lance Hidy found that authors during this time would use symbols that closely related Egyptian hieroglyphics to mark identify their books. This however was only a small part of what made Renaissance books pieces of graphic design. Erhard Ratdolt was highly praised for designing intricate initials and woodcut boarders featuring ornaments resembling patterns from eastern Islamic cultures. Many artists would later take this idea and expand upon it creating extremely intricate cover or title pages mainly featuring plants or flowers of some kind.

            One of the great “graphic designers” of this time was Geoffroy Tory. Tory held many professions including designer, translator, poet and author, publisher and printer. As a scholar in the art of typography and writing he is responsible for the apostrophe, the accent, and the cedilla. Separated into three books Tory’s most influential work was his Champ Fleury a book series that present his findings and innovations to writing. In the first book he explains French grammar, the second focuses more on the roman area of writing, comparing their proportions of the roman letters and the ideal proportions of the human face. The third is what I find most interesting, It contains rules and guides on how to construct your own type face using geometric construction providing grids made up of one hundred squares allowing for exact lettering. What I find most interesting about this book is the type faces that he presents at the end one of which shows the lettering made out of everyday hand tools. 

Book authors of the Renaissance used these symbols to mark their books. In this symbol you can see the resemblance to the scepter a tool used by Kings and other forms of royalty. This particular symbol is used by Andreas Torresanus. 

This font can be found in Tory's third book. This is one of his type casts made out of hand tools.

This is an example of a cover page featuring the wood cut edges that hold ornaments or decoration. This idea was invented by Erhard Ratdolt.