Printing type: 1450 to 1830 (2010)

Some knowledge of printing type is essential in describing printed materials, and it can be of vital importance in assigning a reliable date and a place to documents in which these details are either absent or misleading. The object of this course is to trace the development of letterforms from the period of the invention of printing until its mechanization in the early 19th century.

It will concentrate on the development of the design of printing types, and it will look at the relationship between letters used in other media (writing, sculpture and architecture), and explore the cultural, technical and economic factors that have had an influence on their development.

The course offers a broad historical overview under the following headings: gothic hands, gothic types, the revival of ‘antique’ capitals in Italy, the humanistic script and early roman and italic types, the ‘Aldine’ roman type in 16th-century France, the ‘Dutch taste’ (goût hollandois) in the 17th century, the ‘chancery cursive’ hand (cancellaresca corsiva) and the calligraphic revolution of the later 16th to 18th centuries, new types of the 18th century in France, Britain and Italy, and the commercial types of the first decades of the 19th century.

There will also be sessions in which original artefacts and documents will be examined. There will be a session on the traditional process of making types with punch, matrix and mould, with a demonstration of casting type by hand. The collections of the City Library, Lyon, and the Museum of Printing provide original documents for study.

Course in English with the possibility of discussion in both English and French.