Giovanni Battista Palatino’s 1561 illustrated treatise on the art of writing

Libro nel qual s'insegna à scriver ogni sorte lettera, antica et moderna, di qualunque natione, con le sue regole, et misure, et essempi, et con un breve et util discorso de le cifre, riveduto nuovamente et corretto dal proprio autore... In 4° , portrait of the author to the title, Rome, 1561.

(Book in which it is taught to write all kinds of letters, ancient and modern, of every nation, with their rules and measures, and examples, and with a brief and useful commentary on ciphers, revised again and corrected by its author.

Giovanni Battista Palatino (1515-1575) published his illustrated treatise on the art of writing, in particular the cancellaresca letter and italics, in Rome in 1561, after the Italian wars. It stands out as a major work on Renaissance calligraphy and lettering. Palatino became secretary of the Accademia dello Sdegno in Rome, to whom he dedicated the book. The Accademia dello Sdegno seems to have brought together Italian scholars who were furious (sdegnati) at the plundering of Roman antiquities by foreigners, particularly the French. Palatino is credited with the inscription on the central arch of Rome's Porta del Popolo. Hermann Zapf designed his famous Palatino typeface in 1948; a highly functional garalde he conceived in honor of the master calligrapher.

Document : Bibliothèque nationale de France