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A Fragmentary Treatise on Epigraphic Alphabets by Fra Giocondo da Verona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Lucia A. Ciapponi
Lucia A. Ciapponi*
Affiliation:
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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Extract

The renewed enthusiastic interest in the classical world in the quattrocento brought about a shift of taste which affected all cultural activity, including writing both in its calligraphic and epigraphic styles. Poggio Bracciolini is now generally recognized as the innovator in this area; inspired by the manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, he initiated the elegant, clear and pleasant-toread humanistic script. At the same time a change took place in the inscriptions that painters, sculptors, and architects inserted in their works. Because of increasing attention paid to Roman monuments and inscriptions, Gothic letters, often casually chosen and squeezed one against another in an inappropriate and insufficient space, gradually disappear from paintings, sculptures, and monuments of the quattrocento.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Spring 1979 , pp. 18 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1979

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References

1 Ullman, Berthold L., The Origin and Development of the Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960), pp. 21–57 Google Scholar and esp. p. 54; de la Mare, Albinia C., The Handwriting of Italian Humanists, I (Oxford, 1973), pp. xviii and 62–84 Google Scholar. See also Casamassima, Emanuele, ‘Per una storia delle dottrine paleografiche dall'Umanesimo a Jean Mabillon,’ Studi Medioevali, 3rd Ser., 5 (1964), 525–578 Google Scholar.

2 Covi, Dario, ‘Lettering in the Inscriptions of 15th Century Florentine Paintings,’ Renaissance News, 7 (1954), 46–50 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gray, Nicolete, ‘Sans serif and Other Experimental Inscribed Lettering of the Early Renaissance,’ Motif, 5 (1960), 66–76 Google Scholar; Sparrow, John, Visible Words. A Study of Inscriptions in and as Books and Works of Art (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 10–100 Google Scholar.

3 Meiss, Millard, ‘Towards a more Comprehensive Renaissance Paleography,’ The Art Bulletin, 42 (1960), 97–112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mardersteig, Giovanni, ‘Leon Battista Alberti e la rinascita del carattere lapidario romano nel Quattrocento,’ Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 2 (1959), 285–307 Google Scholar.

4 Felice Feliciano, Alphabetum Romanum, ed. Giovanni Mardersteig (Verona, 1960): see the Introduction by Mardersteig, pp. 9-62 and especially pp. 31-45; Mardersteig, ‘Leon Battista Alberti,’ 298-304. On Feliciano in general see also Mitchell, Charles, ‘Felice Feliciano Antiquarius,’ Proceedings of the British Academy, 47 (1961), 197–221 Google Scholar.

5 A Newly Discovered Treatise on Classical Letter Design, Printed at Parma by Damianus Moyllus circa 1480. Reproduced in Facsimile with an Introduction by Stanley Morison (Paris 1927); Medri, Giovanni, ‘Le opere calligrafiche a stampa. IV. Damiano Moile,’ All'insegna dellibro, 1 (1928), 172–179 Google Scholar; Mardersteig, ‘Leon Battista Alberti,’ 304-305 and Introd. to Feliciano, pp. 60-61.

6 Morison, Stanley, Fra Luca Pacioli of Borgo S. Sepolcro (New York, 1933)Google Scholar; Giovanni Medri, ‘Le opere calligrafiche a stampa.I. Luca Pacioli e il trattato della Divina Proporzione,’ All'insegna del libro, I (1928), 19-27; Mardersteig, ‘Leon Battista Alberti,’ 307 and Introd. to Feliciano, p. 61.

7 Morison pp. 13-20; Mardersteig, Introd. to Feliciano, pp. 60-61. Another anonymous manuscript with a Roman alphabet dated circa 1480 was owned by Mr. C. L. Ricketts of Chicago; it is now in the Newberry Library (see Faye, Christopher U. and Bond, William H., Supplement of the Census of Mediaeval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada [New York, 1962], p. 158, n. 37Google Scholar). It was erroneously attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. According to Morison (p. 19), it is not based on the principle of the ‘tondo e quadro.’ On this manuscript see also Goudy, F. W., ‘The Roman Alphabet, its Origin and Aesthetic Development,’ Ars Typographica, 2 (1926), 202–203 Google Scholar; Muzika, F., Die schöne Schrift in der Entwicklung des lateinischen Alphabets (Hanan am Main, 1965), II, 36–41 Google Scholar.

8 Codices Manuscripti Bibliothecae Regiae Monacensis, Gallici, Hispani, Italia … , VII (Monachii, 1858), 284n. 1035; Passavant, Johann D., Raffaello d'Urbino e il padre suo Giovanni Santi (Firenze, 1882), I, 153; 376-386Google Scholar; Golzio, Vincenzo, Raffaello nei documenti e nelle testimonianze del suo secolo (Città del Vaticano, 1936), pp. 78—92 Google Scholar. The title ‘Fragmentum de Uteris’ was written by the librarian Hardt at the beginning of the nineteenth century: see the detailed study of this manuscript by Fontana, Vincenzo and Morachiello, Paolo, Vitruvio e Raffaello. Il ‘De Architectura’ di Vitruvio nella traduzione inedita di Fabio Calvo Ravennate (Roma, 1975), pp. 11–12 Google Scholar.

9 Feliciano had recommended the ratio 1:10 between thickness and height of letters, as he had found in ancient inscriptions; Alberti used 1:12 and Moyle recommended it, while Pacioli recommended 1:9 (Mardersteig, Introd. to Feliciano, pp. 35-36; 57-60). Our author approves of many different ratios (1:9; 1:10; 1:11 and even 1:8; 1:7; 1:6); what is important for him is the proportion of the letters: ‘ma tuto el fato consiste … de saperle fare così mesurate che le lor figure et forme se acompagnano bene sì de grosseza come de longeza et largeza’ (fol. 97).

10 Ciapponi, Lucia A., ‘Appunti per una biografia di Giovanni Giocondo da Verona,’ Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, 4 (1961), 131—58Google Scholar. We know nothing about Fra Giocondo da Verona (born around 1434-35) until ca. 1480 when we learn that he was in Rome collecting inscriptions. In the following years he served as an architect for the king of Naples and Charles VIII, king of France. He came back to Italy in the service of Venice in 1506, and then he moved back to Rome, where in 1513 Leo X appointed him architect of St. Peter with Bramante and Raphael. He died in Rome on July 1st, 1515. Besides being an epigraphist and an architect, he was an editor of classical authors: most famous is his edition of the De Architectura of Vitruvius, printed in Venice by Giovanni da Trino in 1511; it was reprinted in smaller form with the De Aquaeductibus of Frontinus in Florence in 1513. For his friend Manuzio (to whom he gave an old manuscript of the Epistolae of Pliny and the hitherto unknown text of Julius Obsequens) he edited Sallust (1509), Nonius Marcellus (1513), Caesar (1513), and the Scriptores Ret Rusticae (1514).

11 Vatican Library, Codex Vaticanus Latinus 4104, fol. 50.

12 The letter was first published by Nolhac, Pierre de, ‘Les Correspondents d'Alde Manuce,’ Studi e documenti di storia e diritto, 9(1888), 242–244 Google Scholar and more recently by Renzo Brenzoni, ‘La lettera autografa di fra Giocondo ad Aldo Manuzio,’ Atti e memorie dell'Accademia d'agricoltura, scienze e letteredi Verona, 6th Ser., 12(1960—61), 151—155. Compare especially the letters a, e, g, z, v and the strokes of h, p, q, d which are typical of Giocondo: see Plates I—III. Fontanaand Morachiello, p. 34, n. 16, report that Prof. Augusto Campana believes this section of the manuscript to be the autograph of Giocondo. Dr. A. C. de la Mare in a letter to me has expressed the opinion that despite some differences due to the greater formality of the script of the letter to Aldo, my attribution to Giocondo is almost certainly right.

13 Meiss, 107-109; Alexander, J. J. G. and de la Mare, A. C., The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J. R. Abbey (New York, Washington, 1969), pp. xxviii-xxixGoogle Scholar.

14 Wardrop, James, The Script of Humanism. Some Aspects of Humanistic Script. 1460-1560 (Oxford, 1963), p. 28 Google Scholar, n. I and Pl. 22; pp. 19-35 are a fundamental study of Sanvito. See also: Kunert, Silvio De, ‘Un padovano ignoto ed un suo memoriale,’ Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova, 10 (1907), 1–16; 64-73Google Scholar; Sambin, Paolo, ‘Briciole biografiche del Ruzante e del suo compagno d'arte Marco Aurelio Alvarotti (Menato),’ Italia Medievale e Umanistica, 9 (1966), 265–294 Google Scholar; Alexander and de la Mare, pp. xxviii-xxix; 104-110.

15 ‘Donde nui, non declinando da li vestigii loro [the experts of the time], monstraremo di quelle [inscriptions] qualche pocha particella de ragione de compasso presumpta da quelle littere che ne li sassi et inscriptione antique sonno pervenute a li nostri tempi: non percio imitandole tutte indifferenter (perché et in quelli tempi ce n'erano fate da rudi et indiligenti et incuriosi come hora), ma seligendo le più belle et megliore et quelle generalmente probate, maxime da persone che hanno naso de queste cose et discretione de li tempi cum lo bono iudicio: perché non ognuno ha saldo et sincero iudicio, né in tutti li tempi foreno boni maestri de far dicte littere, né anchora docti homini de far grate inscriptione’ (fols. 90v-91).

16 ‘Sed animadvertant qui desidiam et errores in me retorquent maiores nostros homines fuisse et eadem illis quae et nobis contigisse. Nam, si polite, eleganter, accurateque componebant, ipsis opificibus in aes aut in marmora caedenda delegabant qui cum et litterarum ignari essent et abunde errarent, turn eorum errata vel minime notabantur, vel litura non commode aut sine lapidis iactura superinduci poterat': Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare CCLXX (241), fol. 209. On this manuscript see Isidoro Carini, ‘Sul codice epigrafico di Fra Giocondo recentemente acquistato dalla Biblioteca Vaticana,’ Dissertazioni della Pontificia Accademia Rotnana di archeologia, 2nd. Ser., 5 (1894), 221-282; on Giocondo's collections: CIL, III, 1, xxvii.

17 ‘Ho voluto in questo loco far questo digresso per far intender a quelli che vogliono prorogare la memoria loro et farla diffundere per ora virorum el modo che debeno tenere. Et se hanno facte cose per le quale se possa extendere la lor fama, sta bene; et se non, contentasi de la sua sorte et cognoscano che hanno fratelli assai’ (fols. 9i-oiv ).

18 See, e.g., the explanation of the drawing on fol. 179 of the 1511 edition of Vitruvius. The letter of 1506 is in Venice, Archivio di Stato, Sala Diplomatica Regina Margherita, Ser. LXXIV no. 5; it was first published by Dazzi, Manlio, ‘Sull'architetto del Fondaco dei Tedeschi ,’ Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 99(1940), 877–879 Google Scholar.

19 Pacioli, Luca, Eudidis Megarensis … Opera (Venetiis 1509), p. 31 Google Scholar; Ciapponi, 133-38.

20 Sigismondo Fanti published a treatise in Venice in 1514 with a scope similar to Giocondo's: Giovanni Mardersteig, ‘Francesco Torniello e il suo alfabeto romano,’ in Tra latino e volgare. Per Carlo Dionisotti, ed. Gabriella Bernardoni Trezzini et al. (Padua, 1974), II, 521-543, with drawings of letters and a bibliography of known Italian treatises from 1460 to 1526.