the repetition of the mark makes wonders: standardization!

Type, developed by Gutenberg, circa 1450

what's standard?

standard is what has been repeated tried and becomes popular. 

dance of death

The above woodcut is part of Hans Holbein's Imagines Morti (The Dance of Death). A procession in which skeletons or corpses escort the living to thir graves was a major theme in the visual arts as well as drama, music, and poetry. His designs ranged from the humorous (peasants chasing a fox) to genre (dancing peasants and playing children) to the macabre. 

Pretty effective, since we have our modern Dance of Death.

music as a vehicle for "printing" culture

 

Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (1806-09)

we love music, don't we? 

this is a kind of EARLY spotify.

to play music during the 16th -18th centuries you need a music sheet. who prints it? PRINT HOUSES. many middle income houses had a piano, and someone in the family took piano classes to, at least, play a few pieces and entertain. the family would gather on weekends with friends to listen and sing together.

that's why music is a vehicle for printing culture.

the first newspapers! (circa 17th century)

 

Augsburg, Germany (1609) 

Considered the first newspaper to establish the conventions of the medium

 

The London Gazette (1687)

Publick Occurences (1690), American Colonies 

The public sphere is a virtual arena where opinion is created

typography is an art

de re military, roberto valturio, 15th century

typography makes & arranges "type" to make written language legible, readable and appealing

it means selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths (characters per line). we have the following elements:  

1. tracking: letter-spacing or between letters, 

2. leading: adjusting the space between pairs of letters

3. kerning: adjusting the space between characters. imagine "r" and "n" placed too close to be misread as "m." 

typography also means style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. 

who is involved in typography?

typesetters, graphic designers, art directors, manga artists, comic book artists, etc.

the irony? 

as the digital revolution opened up typography to new generations of DIY designers, the application of principles and best practices developed over generations of skilled workers and professionals has diminished.

Plantin's Biblia Polyglotta, a first of its kind

For many the best printer of the Sixteenth Century, Christophe Plantin learned bookbinding at Caen, Normandy, and settled in 1549 as a bookbinder in Antwerp. A bad arm wound seems to have led him (about 1555) to turn to typography. 

This bible exhibits the following wonders: 1- excellent typography, 

2- impeccable layout of the different language characters IN SYNC!, 

3- elegance, 

4- legibility. 

The Biblia Polyglotta was supported & financed by Philip II of Spain (in spite of clerical opposition). It appeared in eight volumes during 1569-72. 1100 copies were printed.

TYPEFACE an introduction

a typeface is the overall design of lettering; the design can include variations, such as extra bold, bold, regular, light, italic, condensed, extended, etc. 

each of these variations of the typeface we call a font.

the art of designing typefaces is called type design. every typeface is a collection of glyphs,

garamond, type, 

each of which represents an individual letter, number, punctuation mark, or other symbols,

what's the typeface anatomy? serif & sans-serif.

serif,

sans serif,

font-metrics:

Erhard Ratdolt, graphic designer genius

see how the woodcut border and gothic floral interlaced-initials are used by Erhard Ratdolt as a design element 

Ratdolt was an early German printer, active printing in Venice, where he worked from 1476 to 1486. There he produced a Kalendario (1476) for Regiomontanus, 

Ratdolt's design brings forth a German taste for excellence and a novel sense of experimentation, look at the floral "H" printed (above) in red and white, and the complicated greek & roman lace motifs in white over black.  

Or below, the novelty of presenting lunar cycles as moving concentrically on the page (a novel invention).  

Ratdolt also has Euclid's Elements (1482), where he solves the problem of reproducing mathematical diagrams. 

Another important work by Ratdolt are his Poeticon astronomicon (1482). Ratdolt commissioned a series of woodcuts depicting the constellations to accompany Hyginus' text. As with many other star atlases that would follow it, the positions of various stars are indicated overlaid on the mythological image of each constellation. 

Ratdolt's innovations of layout and typography, mixing type and woodcuts are unique in his balance of dazzling technique and imagination.

(as his representation of lunar eclipse),

or his take on alchemy:

See the pictographic narrative of Ratdolt in the upper half of the page. The title, "Haly /Albohazen filii Abennagel" refers to a Rosicrucian text published by Ratdolt in Venice, 1485 (Albohazen, who we see on a throne with an astrolobium, is flanked by naked "Astronomia" and "Urania"). 

The first illustrated world history: Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

The Nuremberg Chronicle follows the story of human history as related in the Bible. It was written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) a classic polymath. According to a 1498 inventory, his library included works of grammar, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, astrology, mathematics, philosophy, plus works relating to his studies in medicine, surgery, the history of science, religion and theology. 

The chronicle is one of the best-documented early printed books -an incunabulum (printed, not hand-written) -and one of the first to successfully integrate illustrations and text. 

Here are some of the amazing illustrations for this fantastic book:

 

The one-foot pigmy or sciapod

The hermaphrodite

Siamese twins

Strange "headless people"

Strange "four-eyed" people

This is entertainment at its best! But remember, Schedel is just transmitting popular beliefs. The book is a a compendium of wondrous and exciting creatures populating the unknown world.

There are about 1,200 copies of the book left: 800 in latin 400 in german. 

Think of early natural history and anthropology. 

Here is a wonderful website dedicated to the book. 

a brief history of typefaces in the middle ages

Script evolution changes in time, and here are some of the reasons:

1- Geography, language, existing culture and cultural influences from the outside and finally, history (whether war, annexation, colonization, technological developments, etc).

 trajan, circa 1st-3rd centuries at (trajan column)

2- Trajan, above, becomes Rustica, below,

rustica, circa 5th century ad

Why? Nobody really knows.  Why are Latin peoples more boisterous than the Nordic? Climate? Food? Language? ALL OF THE ABOVE. I made the point to compare Romanic vs. Gothic. 

The form in the south is more rounded and expanding, the north is ascetic and ascending.

3- With the advent of papyri and vellum we get: NEW ROMAN CURSIVE (miniscules). 

This is a technological achievement: THE INK FLOWS! It was used from approximately the 3rd-7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern readers; "a", "b", "d", and "e" have taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters are proportionate to each other rather than varying wildly in size and placement on a line.

roman cursive (see that this is a faster trace, like gel ink in paper today)

4- We also get UNCIALS (majuscules), this is the lettering of power, church, aristocracy, royalty. Uncials spread all over: west, east, north. Greeks loved uncials! Byzantium loved uncials! Why? I guess it's haiographic.

This is around 7th-9th centuries Carolingian in the west, Byzantium in the east.

uncials 7-9th centuries

5- Then we get half-uncials. Why? They allow for serifs! That's the beginning of ascenders and descenders (remember half-uncials have nothing to do with uncials, all it means is that it's a church letter! Hymns, Psalters, etc).

half-uncials

6- Now the half-uncial crosses the channel to the British Isles. Where? Ireland! Why? The answer may be in the Book of Kells! The Irish were really into illuminated texts... (and they mixed it with keltic paganism). To note, the Irish gave these typefaces a makeover with the use of rinceaux and more complex superimposition of knots. 

or this (much later) 11th century, miniscule:

7- It's from this travel to the Isles that we get the whole proto-gothic family:

Visigothic,

Merovingian, basically a Carolingian miniscule circa (7th-8th century)

merovingian

and Beneventan (basically derivation of Carolingian miniscule),

benvenetan

In time you get this beauty. The Gothic Textura!

Mature Gothic is already the Humanist style.

Bastarda, Chancery, secretary, etc, and the rest are just variations of these styles.

a typeface has a soul

above, an example of Merovingian minuscule (circa 7th century), what is interesting here is that this "style" disappeared with the destruction of the Luxeuil monastery. A reputed source has hinted that our English " &" actually derives from the luxet "et."  

petrus Andronicus, the scribe, writes in his -fragmented- memoirs: "types carry their own  souls... some go to heaven, some may not"

quite cryptic. what does he mean? 

as similar in appearance, as when a Visigothic "t"

may look like an "a."

or when a soul shows as a twin-like in this early beneventan minuscule "a," which looks like a double cc, so common in Latin syntax?

so, what's the soul of "m" like? 

anonymous speculation from a scribe, at the marginalia of a Codex Calixtinus, reads: the true form of m has three elements... it strives for more than "n," as it is inverse to "w" and close to the numeral "3."

the soul of the letter is the expression manifested in its character.

later in the note Andronicus reveals that, it's left to the scribe's wonderful skill to inscribe each character with the inner harmony of the whole, since what would the whole be without each one of its parts?  

the dramatic design: the four horsemen of the apocalypse

The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse exhibits Dürer at his printing best. Works like this one, established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties. 

The woodcuts reflects the apocalyptic spirit of Northern Europe at a time when famine, plague, and social and religious upheaval were common (it's known that Dürer was sympathetic to Luther's reform).

How is it done?

Basically the artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts (left side of the photo). 

The areas cut-away (hollow spaces) carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

You can call this "xylography", but this is rarely used in English for images alone. Woodcut  became a popular term in Europe during the latter half of the 15th century. 

What do we get a mark level?

1. drama 

2. moral instruction (the equivalent today is your pet social campaigns) 

3. memento mori, life is short, make the best of it! (this is the end of the middle ages)

jefferson's "rough" draft of the declaration of independence (how to look at this document?)

what do we have here?

1. a pivotal political document for the 18th century (it justifies the revolution)

2. an indictment against the british king

3. a treatise on government

4. jefferson (the best writer of the forefathers) had 17 days to write it. he completed it in three days.

the mark of the empire: rome, circa 200 AD (what a beauty!)

totalview,

 

view from campus martius

colisseum view,

view from the temple of jupiter, optimus Maximus

the map was commissioned by Mussolini in 1933, and the plaster model was created by archaeologist Italo Gismondi, who worked on the piece throughout his life. The initial core of the scale model was completed for a large exhibition celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of the death of Augustus! In the 1950s; it was installed permanently in the Museum of Roman Civilization, with Gismondi continuing to expand the model up until 1971.

link here.