An Ancient Typography
November z6, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 59 approval of any effort to make the life of the strug gling...
...For we have a distinct, if precarious belief that America is on the verge of an era when art will discover patrons (in the good and ancient sense) and artists will be able to give joy fully of their enchantment...
...It is entitled Indice de Caratteri, eon l'Inventori, and nomi di esse, esistenti nella Stampa Vaticana and Camerale, issued at Rome and dedicated to Francesco, Cardinal Barberini, whose symbolic bees figure on the title page, beneath an enormous red cardinal's hat...
...Specimens of Hebrew, of some distinguished Greek capitals and Greek lower case which accord very nicely with the roman fonts, and four extraordinarily interesting specimens of plain-song music type, marked cx bibliotheca Vaticana follow, and the book closes with two sizes of a large old style letter, used no doubt with music or for the Canon of the Mass...
...One still finds eruptions of that ancient hoax that the artist does his best work when starving, and to those who still believe it (and have never produced so much as an artistic pumpkin pie themselves) the notion of "stabilizing the musical industry" will be abhorrent...
...ABRAHAM obligingly devises letters for the Syrians and Chaldeans...
...Cmii...
...JEROME and St...
...It can be suffocated by luxury, but never dimmed by a decent livelihood...
...The finest art in world history has usually been endowed art—the consolation of patrons who for various and often rather amusing motives have enabled the creative instinct of others to ripen richly...
...This is followed by descending sizes of fine old style fonts—such as the ascendonica...
...MosEs is made to father the Hebrew alphabet...
...But a half way serious backward glance should dispel all fears...
...The Indice is among the most interesting specimens in the history of printing, and shows the material of a seventeenth century Italian printing office at its simplest and best The Stamperia Vatirana had been founded by Sinus V in 1587, and, as its name implies, it was housed in the Vatican, next to the Vatican Library, looking upon the Cortile di Belvidere...
...November z6, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 59 approval of any effort to make the life of the struggling musician more hopeful and the use of his talents wider spread...
...and PrraAGORAS added to the joy of life by presenting the world with a Y. There are a good many more curious inscriptions...
...Would we know many of them today were it not for the Medici gold...
...The dedicatory epistle is printed in a fine old style roman font, and the address Al Lettore (in which BROGIOrrI says that he has been the chief agent in collecting and renovating these fonts) is set in an italic which has a few striking characteristics Then follows a collection of exotic types with astonishing attributions—in which ADAM is called the first inventor of science and letters...
...and PHOENIX gives letters to the Phoenicians...
...In serving to bring musicians and music patrons together, the League is joining in a development of national life that holds rich promise...
...The smaller sizes of roman, and especially the italic—varied by a series of capital letters for titles, etc., show a fine, even collection of old style fonts of which any printing house might be proud...
...The serious part of the work begins on leaf 27, where some heavy roman capitals of the oldest form of old style are shown...
...PORTER GANNETT, Master of the Laboratory Press of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, from whom we have received valuable assistance in arranging our typographical style...
...DOMINICo BASA of Venice was its director, and ALDUS MAwLrrIus the younger was associated with hint in it& affairs for some ten years, until his death in 1597...
...The impulse to creative art is not to be measured by the emptiness of a dinner pail or the harassments of a landlord...
...For this reason we are glad to commend the work of the Music League and to forgive it the language of an advertising convention...
...The character called canon grosso is a fine letter with exceedingly long ascenders and descenders, resembling types cut by GARAMOWD and some roman types used in Spain...
...It would be hard indeed to pictire THOMAS OF AcQUIN writing chapters of the Summa in a garret and peddling five pages at a time to buy an occasional dinner...
...AN ANCIENT TYPOGRAPHY used as the model for the tide of Tns Tre MONWEAL, was selected through a suggestion made by Mr...
...Or again, the artists of the Italian Renaissance...
...Take, for example, the artists of the mind, those giant intellects of thirteenth century France who fashioned a great philosophy from a turbulent semibarbarism...
...GANNETT supplies us with the following suggestive note on the work of the Stamperia ~Taticana, drawn from Printing Types, Their History, Forms and Use, by DANIEL BERKELEY UPDIKE...
...The type in question is a Roman used by the Stamperia Vaticana...
...They were the glowing children of endowed universities...
...For late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century types we have a valuable source book in the i6aB specimen of the Stamperia Vaticana and Camerale, founded at Rome in 1587...
...also had a hand in alphabet making...
...The italic corsivo grosso is an interesting and varied character, full of movement and style, and probably cut by ROBERT GRANJON for the printing house...
...Esrnuts is found improving the Hebrew alphabet...
...In this corsivo, the lower case z's and the final e's, the double s and the "swash" c and d, are to be looked at...
...Endowed amateurs will also sniff the air a bit and talk of musical Babbitry...
...Its plan accords, with the revival of artistic patronage which has inspired the University of Michigan, to create a life fellowship for ROBERT FRosr—on the condition that he spend the rest of his life writing poetry at Ann Arbor I A nation begins to forget its stomach and discover its soul when it discovers also the eternal worth and the finer aspirations of its artists...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 3
