VERVLIET, Hendrik D. L.

The Palaeotypography of the French Renaissance. Selected Papers on Sixteenth-Century Typefaces. Two volumes.

      Brill Publications, 2008, octavo, cloth in dust jackets. viii, 1-286 pp.; vi, 287-565 pp. First Edition. This collection of thirteen essays examines sixteenth-century type design in France. Typefaces developed during this period were to influence decisively the typography of the centuries which followed, and they continue to influence a great many contemporary typefaces. The papers' common goal is to establish the paternity of the typefaces described and critically to appraise their attributions, many of which have previously been inadequately ascribed. Such an approach will be of interest to type historians and type designers seeking better-documented attributions, and to historians, philologists, and bibliographers, whose study of historical imprints will benefit from more accurate type descriptions. The papers and illustrations focus on the most important letter-cutters of the French Renaissance, including Simon de Colines, Robert Estienne, Claude Garamont, Robert Granjon, Pierre Haultin, and also include a number of minor masters of the period. VOLUME I: Preface; Introduction; Abbreviations and Conventional Signs; Old English and French Names for Body Sizes; Early Sixteenth-Century Parisian Roman Types; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Roman Types by Body Size; Simon de Colines, Punchcutter; 1518–1546 Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Colines’s Types by Letter Family and Size; The Printing Types of the Young Robert I Estienne; 1526–1530; Robert Estienne’s Printing Types; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Estienne’s Types by Family and Body Size; Table 2: Estienne’s Types by Year of First Occurrence; Garamont’s Canons: Roman Type Design in Sixteenth-Century France; The Young Garamont: Roman Types Made in Paris in the 1530s; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Types in Order of First Occurrence; Table 2: Types Classified by Punchcutter; Roman Types by Robert Granjon; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Granjon’s Romans by Date; Table 2: Granjon’s Romans by Body Size; Printing Types of Pierre Haultin; c. 1510–1587; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Haultin’s Typefaces in Order of Date and Place of First Appearance. VOLUME II: Early Paris Italics; 1512–1549; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Types by Body Size; The Italics of Robert Granjon; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Granjon’s Italics by Style; Table 2: Granjon’s Italics by Body Size; Greek Typefaces of the Early French Renaissance: The Predecessors of the Grecs du Roy; Conspectus of Types; Greek Printing Types of the French Renaissance: The ‘Grecs du Roy’ and Their Successors Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Greek Types by Body Size; Table 2: Greek Types by Date of First Appearance; Cyrillic & Oriental Typography in Rome at the End of the Sixteenth Century: An Inquiry into the Later Work of Robert Granjon; 1578–1590; Conspectus of Types; Table 1: Types in Order of First Occurrence; List of Typefaces Cited or Discussed; References; Index. Very fine.