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Lettering in the Inscriptions of 15th Century Florentine Paintings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
The use of lettering in Renaissance painting has yet to be investigated systematically. I believe, however, that at this point a few general observations can be made. From a more or less systematic survey of the letter forms occurring in inscriptions in Quattrocento painting, we learn, as we might expect, that painted letters reflect changes which take place in the development of lettering in general. In the course of the 15th century reforms in lettering led from the Gothic to the humanistica script and to Roman capitals. Both the new script and the capitals assert themselves in painting. At the same time, painters do not oust Gothic letters. The process of assimilation leads to important observations inasmuch as palaeographical as well as epigraphical forms are treated by the Quattrocento painters aesthetically as well as iconographically.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1954
References
1. The library designation of the manuscript is Hamilton 166. For a reproduction of the colophon and a few lines of the text, see Morison, S., ‘Early Humanistic Script and the First Roman Type,’ The Library (Transactions of the Bibliographical Society), XXIV, June-September 1943 Google Scholar, Fig. 11.
2. The inscription is on an open book displayed by St. Thomas Aquinas, and consists of verses 1-3 The invocation Ave Maria Gratia… is inscribed in gold Roman capitals on the fore-edge of the base of the Virgin's throne (cf. van Marie, R., The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, x, 1928 Google Scholar, Fig. 162)
4. See the inscription in the scene of St. James Condemned to Death ( Kristeller, P., AndreaMantegna, Berlin and Leipzig, 1902 Google Scholar, Fig. 27).
5. The manuscript is No. 6852 in the Biblioteca Vaticana.
6. The instructions, but not the designs of the letters, have been published in Schoene, R., ‘Felicis Feliciani Vcronensis Opusculum Ineditum’, Ephemeris Epigraphica, 1, 1872, pp.255–269 Google Scholar.
7. As a phenomenon it has a significant parallel to Jan van Eyck's deliberate choice of either Romanesque or Gothic styles in his architectural settings (cf. Panofsky, E., Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, 1953, pp. 136–137 Google Scholar).
7. As a phenomenon it has a significant parallel to Jan van Eyck's deliberate choice of either Romanesque or Gothic styles in his architectural settings (cf. Panofsky, E., Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, 1953, pp. 136–137 Google Scholar).