"The origin of italics is the cursive humanist script which was made serviceable for printing by the punch-cutter Francesco Griffo, who worked for Aldus Manutius in Venice about 1500, and the script of the Papal chancery which was adjusted to printing by the Roman printing-master Ludovico Arrighi and the Roman printer Antonio Blado about 1520."

S. H. Steinberg - Five hundred years of printing. new ed. (1996), p.11.

Saint Catherine, of Siena. Epistole devotissime. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1500

"There was ... a form of handwriting, known as "chancery" script from its development in the Vatican chancery. This was used for the common, everyday purposes of business and correspondence and for the writing of documents of minor importance....
"A type representing this chancery script seemed to Aldus to be appropriate for hisinexpensive books in small formats. In 1500, therefore, he had his typefounders make a font of this new type from the punches cut by Francesco Griffo, of Bologna, a goldsmith then resident in Venice, and thus introduced into printingthe letter form which has ever since been called italic. Its first appearance was in thefew words of the title of a woodcut illustration used in the Epistole of Saint Catherine of Sienna, which Aldus published in September, 1500."

Douglas McMurtrie, The book. 3d ed. (1943), pp.211-12

"He in 1500 was about to launch a series of classical texts in convenient small format - 'portable books in the nature of manuals', he said. They were intended to be personal possessions and obtainable at a price that could be afforded by studious persons. I imagine that the script favoured by scholars for private reading seemed to him appropriate for these books: it savored of learning and was intimate. Previously the only small books, octavos and duodecimos and less, were religious, prayers and good advice; the classics were at least quarto. The projected series was a revolution in publishing: people were expected to carry about with them not only breviaries and Hours and the Imitation of Christ but Juvenal and Martial too. A departure from precedent in the type was appropriate, and I suppose that the Roman type associated with grand editions of the ancient authors seemed to Aldus too pompous for the pocket editions that he hoped would bring them into everyday reading....
"If Aldus hoped, as it is commonly said that he did, but he never said, that cursive letterforms would save space, he must have been disappointed by the result: a Roman type on the same body gets in just as much."

Harry Carter - A view of early typography (1969), pp.73-74

Virgil. Vergilius [Opera]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1501

"The chancery script was written either vertically or with a forward slant. The earliest Aldine chancery types had a very slight forward slant ... and were used with capital letters of a roman font. Even after the italics developed a more pronounced forward slant under the hands of later designers, roman (upright) capitals continued to be used with them for thirty or forty years before real italic (slanting) capitals were designed.
"The first book printed throughout in the new italic was the works of Virgil published by Aldus in April, 1501 - a volume of 228 octavo leaves. There followed a long series of compact editions of Latin and Italian texts printed largely in italic - a series which Mr. Winship has aptly called the Everyman's Library of its day."

Douglas McMurtrie - The book. 3d ed. (1943), p.212

Horace. Horatius [Opera]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1501

"The Aldine italic was founded upon a Humanistic cursive Italian handwriting of a somewhat earlier period, of which there are endless examples. As a type it had several particularly distinguishing features: first, originality of character; second, a large number of tied letters, of which there are about sixty-five in the Aldine Dante and Virgil; and third, the use of roman capitals shorter than the ascending lower-case italic letters - indeed the dot of the lowercase I stands above a roman capital I.... Tied letters were used to produce a cursive appearance. For these tied letters an elaborate case was necessary, and thus composition became much more difficult; but in the later Aldine editions fewer tied letters were used, without great loss of effect....
"This Aldine character became the model for most subsequent italic types. In its own day it had a great success, and, like most typographic success to-day, was widely and inaccurately imitated...."

Daniel Berkeley Updike -Printing types. 3d ed. (1962), p.129

Francesco Petrarca. Le cose volgari. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1501

"It was Bembo who edited the first Petrarch and the first Dante to appear in the Cinquecento, respectively in July 1501 and August 1502. "These two editions appeared in a series of Latin and vernacular texts launched in April 1501 by the printer-scholar Aldo Manuzio, who had previously specialized in Greek and Latin works. The series set out to be radically and provocatively innovative. It used a completely new typeface, the first ever italic. The format was octavo, unheard of for printed texts of this kind. It accorded to Petrarch and Dante the same status as Latin classics such as Virgil and Horace, and it presented the work of all these authors uncluttered by commentaries and other extraneous matter for the first time in some twenty to twenty-five years."

Brian Richardson - Print culture in Renaissance Italy (1994), p.48

Dante Alighieri. Le terze rime. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1502

"The Aldine italic has been described as 'much less elegant than serviceable,' and even its utility was questionable, from the point of view of modern type composition, because of the large number of ligatures in its font. Updike has counted no fewer than sixty-five tied letters in the Aldine Virgil of 1501 and the Dante of 1502. While Aldus was the first to see the value of the chancery script as a model for printing types, the design which he used was far surpassed, in beauty of form, by those cut later at Rome by Ludovico degli Arrighi, of Vicenza."

Douglas McMurtrie, The book. 3d ed. (1943), p.212

Virgil. Vergilius [Opera]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1514

"The colophon dates in several books notwithstanding, this phenomenon [of printing on blue paper] began probably in late summer or early autumn of 1514, when Aldus acquired a supply of blue paper suitable for printing and issued the first book printed on this medium.... Beginning with Aldus, it was used for the exceptional copy of a work, one that could be offered for presentation or at a premium to collectors. In a sense, it provided a less expensive alternative to vellum....
"There are two distinct issues of this edition of Virgil and more than one state of this earlier issue. This blue-paper copy has been reset in part and contains type settings that conform to no known white-paper version."

H. George Fletcher - In praise of Aldus Manutius (1995), pp.102-3

Jacopo Sannazaro. De partu Virginis. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1528

"Luigi Balsamo states (pp.113-14) that the Torresani introduced a new italic font in the August 1528 Sannazaro, De partu virginis,... There are (at least) two versions extant of this book, and ... I can both prove and disavow the contention of the new italic face on the witness of my copies. The 1528 Aldine Sannazaro is such a scarce work that any detailed description of its contents will probably be useful.... "The second copy ... is most interesting typographically. The original Aldine italic, with roman small capitals (i.e., not small capitals), is used to set signatures X8, G-H8, I4. A new italic, with roman capitals (i.e., not small capitals), is used to set signatures A-E8. The new face is larger, with many fewer ligatures. In this new face, the spacing of the roman capitals before the lower-case italic at each line opening is more pronounced, and one ligatured Qu sort is changed to a proportionately smaller size, to make both letters of the sort harmonize. Signature F is a composite, set both ways: F1-2 with conjoints F7-8 are in the original font; F3-4 with conjoints F5-6, in the new font. "

H. George Fletcher - New Aldine studies (1988), pp. 84-5

Francesco Petrarca. Le cose vulgari. Lyon: Bathalzar de Gabiano, 1502?

Dante Alighieri. Le terze rime. Lyon: Bathalzar de Gabiano, 1503?

"The most important aspect, however, was the functionality of the new type in regard to legibility: this is one of the factors that explain its great success and unparalleled diffusion, both evidenced by the many counterfeit editions. The first, and most famous, appeared in Lyon the following year. This initiative can apparently be attributed to the book-sellers of the Gabiano family who operated both in Venice and Lyon. The thriving market for books in Lyon - promoted by periodic book-fairs - facilitated the sale of books in various European countries, so much so that some of their counterfeit editions were quickly sold out and thus had to be reprinted with more haste than the originals."

Luigi Balsamo,"Legibility and migration," 1997

Xenophon. Xenophontis [Opera]. Lyon: Bartolomeo Trot, 1511

Tiberius Catius Silius Italicus. De secundo bello punico. Lyon: Bartolomeo Trot, 1514

"The cultural significance of the appearance of italic type in Lyons at this early date is considerable.... Apart from the counterfeit Aldine series, editions of the classics are printed in gothic types until well into the 1520s, whereas Paris had used roman type for this class of book since the end of the 15th century.... "The existence of the counterfeit italic series strongly suggests a greater penetration of Italian Renaissance culture in the Lyonese markets than one would otherwise have guessed, unless these books were predominantly for export markets. Some of the selling power of the books must have come from the reputation of Aldus's scholarship apparently guaranteed by the distinction of the italic type and the pocket format (and sadly betrayed by the inaccuracies of the early piracies). It can be argued that these series of italic counterfeits did help to effect a change of taste. From the 1520s, italic type in France becomes more and more associated with the cultural values of the humanist Renaissance (and therefore of Italy)."

David J. Shaw - "The Lyons counterfeit of Aldus's italic type," in The Italian book, 1465-1800: Studies presented to

Dennis E. Rhodes on his 70th birthday (1993), pp.121-22

"The imitations are the best proof of the great esteem in which the type was held by the literate world. From the counterfeit Aldine editions printed at Lyons from 1502 onwards until the middle of the century, Italian, French, and German punchcutters produced faces of the kind which were no improvement on the original and were of exactly the same design. The success of the type is very likely attributable in part to the success of the publishing of which it was a feature. The house of Aldus published the first series of books uniform as to format, the classics that people ought to have read.... The Italic became a symbol of learned humanism, and in Italy, and to a less extent in western Europe as a whole, it made great inroads on the

Harry Carter - A view of early typography (1959), pp.74-75

Gaius Valerius Catullus. Catullus. Propertius. Tibullus. Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1503

"The rarest edition of Catullus is the pirated Giuntine, in counterfeited italic, which Filippo Giunta published in Florence on 5 August 1503. It was released in a city well beyond the sway of doge and Serenissima, but not beyond that of the papacy; Aldus was successful in his prosecution [of piracy of his italic typeface].... This edition was prepared by Benedictus Ricardinus, called Philologus, and he speaks openly of the Aldine in his colophon.... As late as March 1503 only the foreigners in distant Lyons had dared to steal Aldus' inventions from him; the temptation had not yet overwhelmed anyone in his native Italy."

H. George Fletcher - New Aldine studies (1988), p.103

Francesco Cei. Sonecti, capituli, canzone, sextine, stanze, et strambocti. Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1503

Gaius Valerius Flaccus. Valerius Flaccus [Argonautica]. Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1503

Ecologae Vergilii. Francisci Pe[trarcae]. Calphurnii. Ioannis Boc[caccii]. Nemesiani. Ioan. Bap. Ma[ntuani]. Pomponii Gaurici. Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1504

"The privilege [protecting the use of his italic typeface] which Aldus obtained from the city of Venice was of no avail, even in Italy. The Giunta in Florence copied him in 1503...."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs. 2d ed. (1959), p.96

Francesco Petrarca. Opera volgari. Fano: Geršom b.Moše Soncino, 1503

Pacifico Massimi. Opera. Fano: Geršom b.Moše Soncino, 1506

"After a rather abrupt end to their relations, the engraver of the Aldine italic, Francesco Griffo, soon found himself in hostile competition with his former collaborator. He accepted Giacomo Soncino's invitation to come to Fano where he engraved a new italic type, larger and rounder than the original, with relatively few ligatures. It was used for the first time in an edition of Petrarch's Opere volgari (Fano, 1503), published with a dedication to Cesare Borgia in which Soncino harshly attacked Aldus: with venomous professional rivalry, Soncino challenged the validity of the hand-written fount used in the 1501 Petrarch, claiming, moreover, that Aldus had unfairly exploited Griffo."

Luigi Balsamo, "Legibility and migration," 1997

Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola. Liber de providentia Dei contra philosophastros. Novi di Modena: Benedetto Dolcibelli, 1508

"[I]n 1506 Benedetto Dolcibelli was printing at Carpi in another version of the Aldine letter.

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.96

Giovanni Boccaccio. Il Decamerone. Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1516

Dante Alighieri. La comedia. Venice: Francesco Marcolini for Alessandro Vellutello, 1544

"In Italy, in the first half of the [16th] century, the majority of printers had their Aldine italic. We may cite three well-known editions of examples of the popularity of the letter, the Decameron, printed in 1516 by Filippo Giunta at Florence, the first editions of Machiavelli's works printed at Rome by Antonio Blado in 1531 and 1532, and Marcolini's Dante of 1544. These types depart from the original chiefly by cutting down the enormous number of ligatures at first used by Aldus. The design remains the same and the model is adhered to in the consistent use of upright

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.96

Niccolò Perotti. Cornucopiae, sive, Linguae latinae. Toscolano: Alessandro de' Paganini, 1522

"The letters used by the printer, Paganino of Toscolano, which he calls 'characteres elegantissimos' represent a notable step forward for Venetian craftsmanship. These 'most elegant' types are an italic of great interest for their size, smaller than Aldus's and form, which is upright. Paganino had been anticipated by the printer Benedetto Dolcibello of Carpi in 1506, who well described himself as 'Impressor elegantissimus' and his letter as 'pulcherrimus.'"

Stanley Morison - Early Italian writing books (1990), p.47

Ovid. Metamorphosis. Toscolano: Alessandro de' Paganini, 1526

"Even more interesting was the case of printer-publisher Alessandro Paganini whose admiration for Aldus became a strong stimulus to achieve something new in the field of typography. Although Brunet defined the so-called "Paganini" type as bizarre, there were actually no less than five distinct designs. They reflected the successive phases of a graphic study intended as the progressive assimilation of the Roman and italic types. Pagnini's laborious experimentation resulted in an archaic imprint that influenced not only the design of type but the entire graphic composition of the page. Indeed it was Paganini who had recognized Aldus's commitment to innovation as an example worthy of being followed. But in

Luigi Balsamo, "Legibility and migration," 1997

Pierio Valeriano. Pro sacerdotum barbis. Rome: Francesco Minucio Calvo, 1531

"In our view, Arrighi produced the finest italic of his day and, at any rate at Rome, was unrivalled as a printer. Minitius Calvus was by this time printing with italic types of the Aldine school, but his books are only remarkable for the fact that his pages are well leaded."

A. F. Johnson & Stanley Morison - "The chancery types of Italy and France,"Fleuron 2 (1924), p.29

Girolamo Malipiero. Il Petrarcha spirituale.Venice: Francesco Marcolini, 1536

Pietro Bembo. Prose. Venice: Francesco Marcolini, 1538

Vincenzo Brusantini Angelica inamorata.Venice: Francesco Marcolini, 1550

"Another distinguished Venetian printer, Francesco Marcolini da Forli, printed mainly in italic, and his use of cursive founts illustrates the fashion of the day. He had at least seven founts in italic. The two smallest sizes (about 10 pt and 9 pt) were used for notes only, and may be described as Aldine. Two others, used in the last years of his career, from 1556, were of foreign origin.... No.5 was the Aldine used in the Dante, but even with this, besides the usual lower-case g, Marcolini had the second g with the calligraphic tail. The remaining two italics are of the Vicentino school, and it is these that were used for the text of most of his books. The larger type, again of about 16 pt., is akin to the Blado, swash capitals are used, the calligraphic g, and a ligature gg, the large ampersand, and the diamond-shaped full-stop. Il Petrarcha Spirituale, 1536, and several books of Pietro Aretino are printed in this italic. Later, Marcolini spoilt the fount by using a thick-faced upper case, a strange mistake for such a printer to make (cf. The Prose di Bembo, 1538)."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.105

Francesco Marcolini, ed. Lettere scritte al signor Pietro Aretino. 2v. Venice: Francisco Marcolini, 1551

"The smaller type is even more remarkable, as in it the principles of the formal chancery are applied to a letter of the Aldine size. All the characteristics of the larger italic just described are found, and the essential difference between the two schools clearly illustrated. The letters are separately and carefully formed, and in conse-quence the appearance of a hasty script which typifies the Aldine is avoided."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.105

Luigi Alamanni. Opere Toscane. Venice: Peter Schoeffer for heirs of Luca Antonio Giunta, 1542

Giovanni Boccaccio. Geneologia de gli dei. Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrara, 1545

"The younger Peter Schoeffer was in Venice in 1541 and 1542 and ... used an Italic of revolutionary design, which Mr. A. F. Johnson has named 'the Basle Italic'.... This italic shares with one cut in Paris by De Colines about the same time the distinction of departing from the Aldine pattern and being much nearer to the Roman in width and letter-formation. It was, moreover, the second Italic to have sloped capitals, the first being a little-known one confined to a press in Vienna. The Basle face is undoubtedly in the direct line of descent of the modern printer's Italic. For all of the ungainliness of some of its letters, this type was in great demand in Lyons and Basle and is also found in Frankfurt, Paris, Strasburg, London, Venice, and other cities of Italy."

Harry Carter - A view of early typography (1969), p. 111

Xenophon. Le guerre de Greci. Venice: Nicolò Bascarini?, 1550

Giovanni Boccaccio. Il decamerone. Venice: Vicenzo Valgrisi, 1552

Anne of Cleves. Repudio della Reina Maria d'Inghilterra. Bologna: Antonio Giaccarello & Pelegrino Bonardo, 1558

"This is a remarkable letter in design and remarkable in its popularity, which endured for some twenty years.... The lower case of the Basle italic is a large letter of considerable slope, while the up-per case is an extraordinary collection of letters at all angles. The M, N, R and V are the strangest. The O and Q are upright, and the A and P are swash letters. The designer can never have meant these capitals to stand in line together, and yet many contemporary printers did make the attempt.... No italic of the day is found in the hands of so many different printers.... Giovanni Griffio, Giolito and Marcolini among other printers at Venice used it for preliminaries, and sometimes even a whole book was set in it, e.g. Xenophon's Guerre dei Greci, 1550. In other Italian cities it is found at Florence, at the Giunta press, at Rome with the Dorici, at Bologna, Mantua, Padua and Rimini."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), pp.109-10

Niccolò Machiavelli. Il prencipe. Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, 1550

Francesco Petrarca. Il Petrarcha. Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, 1544

"In matters of typography Giolito was not an originator. The smaller, somewhat crowded italics, in which most of his books were printed, are very like the types used by his contemporaries at Venice, such as Valgrisi and Griffio.... Giolito's little duodecimos, a size which he much affected and made popular in Italy, were printed in such types. His earlier larger italic, which bears some resemblance to Blado's, though inferior, is for the most part only to be seen in prefaces, as in the preface to the Petrarch of 1544.

A. F. Johnson - The Italian sixteenth century (1926), p.24

Lodovico Dolce. Vita dell' invitiss. e gloriosiss. imperador Carlo Quinto. Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, 1563

Bartolommeo Cavalcanti. La retorica. Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, 1559

Ovid. Le trasformationi di m. Lodovico Dolce. Venice: Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, 1553

"His later larger italic, which shows a French influence, was used for whole books, as in the Vita di Carlo Quinto of Dolce, 1567, and in Cavalcante's Retorica of 1559, one of the few books in folio printed by Giolito, and a fine volume though rather over-decorated. As early as 1553, in the Trasformationi, such italics will be seen."

A. F. Johnson - The Italian sixteenth century (1926), p.24

Catholic Church. Pope (1513-1521: Leo X). [Papal brief addressed to the nuns of the monasteries of Bourges & Albi]. Rome: 3 March 1515

The writer of this specimen of Papal chancery script is generally regarded as Lodovico degli Arrighi; the hand is very similar to three others also considered possibly to have been written by him. The document is signed ("P. Bembus) by Pietro Bembo who was Papal Secretary at the time.

Baltimore Museum of Art. 2,000 years of calligraphy: A three-part exhibition.... A comprehensive catalogue [compiled by Dorothy E. Miner, Victor I. Carlson, and P. W. Filby]. Baltimore, 1965

Item 61 describes and reproduces one of the three documents that has been attributed to Arrighi.

Giovanni Giorgio Trissino. Epistola de le lettere nuovamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana. Rome: Lodovico degli Arrighi, 1524

"Vincentino's [Arrighi's] press was a small one, and his purpose was to issue a few select books in a beautiful setting. The cursive which he designed was a formal letter based on the hand which he himself practised; the letters are narrow, but separately formed and with a slight inclination. The ascenders are given rounded terminals in the place of serifs. The capitals are upright, but are varied by the introduction of swash letters.... "

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.100

Francesco Cattani da Diacceto. Panegirico. Rome: Lodovico degli Arrighi, 1526

"[Starting in 1526] a new cursive is used. This is still a formal chancery, but with serifs in place of the rounded terminals, and without the swashes. It is about the same size as the earlier type (about 16 pt.), but of a larger face. It is noteworthy that almost all the italics of the Vincentino group have generous ascenders and descenders, and seldom measure less than about 16 pt. Economy of space was not considered in their design."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.100

"The four books which appeared in 1526, together with a fifth undated, are printed in a new and larger fount; this type is less exuberant, more sober than the earlier one; the swash capitals and exaggerated ascenders and descenders have gone. While the first italic was eminently suitable for a volume of lyrics, perhaps the new type is better adapted for everyday printing."

Stanley Morison - "The chancery types of Italy and France" Fleuron 3 (1924), p.33

Ludovico degli Arrighi. [Broadside type specimen showing Arrighi's first italic type]. Vicenza: Tolomeo Gianicolo for Giovanni Giorgio Trissino, 1529

"Janicolo issued a specimen of his type, one of the earliest and least known of such advertisements, on which he makes no mention of Vicentino."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.103

This is an example of the third extant type specimen, the first to have been printed in Italy, preceded only by Erhard Ratdolt's (Augsburg 1485) and by Johann Petri's (Basel, 1525). It shows all the sorts designed by Arrighi and engraved by Lautizio Perugino, including those commissioned by Trissino to utilize in his expanded alphabet of the Italian language.

Giovanni Giorgio Trissino. La Sophonisba. Vicenza: Tolomeo Gianiculo, 1529

Giovanni Giorgio Trissino. La Italia liberata da Gotthi. 3v.. Rome: Valerio Dorico & Luigi Dorico, 1547 (v.1); Vicenza: Tolomeo Gianiculo, 1548 (v.2-3)

"Trissino in 1529 employed Tolomeo Janicolo of Brescia to reprint his works in his native town of Vicenza. A copy of Vicentino's type was used for these reprints and also for Trissino's translation of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia. These beautiful books ... have made Trissino's name well known to bibliographers."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.103

"...That printer has elsewhere received considerable praise for these beautiful editions of Trissino's works; and not undeservedly, but for the fact that it is not mentioned that they are a fairly close copy of Arrighi's editions. A few letters of Janicolo's type are different and more of the Greek letters are introduced, but otherwise everything is a repetition of Arrighi's work."

Stanley Morison - "The chancery types of Italy and France" Fleuron 3 (1924), pp.29-31

"The full story of the types used by Arrighi cannot yet be written. The libraries and archives of Europe have still to be fully explored. The main outlines are, however, becoming clearer. Whereas the Aldine Italic was designed to imitate handwriting and cram as much text as possible into a page ... Arrighi, although he too imitated handwriting, was far less interested in economy of space. His books, produced in small quantities for wealthy patrons, are of quarto size with wide margins, and the texts are usually short and contemporary. He never printed a classic. His types are designed accordingly. They are about 16 point in size and contain far fewer ligatures than the Aldine Italic. They are always calligraphic, never cramped; their long ascenders and descenders invest his page with a spacious, elegant look....
"Griffo and Arrighi must have known each other's work, but no contact between them has been traced. It is from the traditions established by these two great contemporaries that all our italic types are derived."

A. S. Osley - "The origins of italic type," in Calligraphy and palaeography: Essays presented to Alfred Fairbank on his 70th birthday (1965), pp.112-17

Ludovico degli Arrighi. Regola da imparare scrivere varii caratteri de littere.... Venice: Niccolò Zoppino, 1533

"The first printed models of this kind of writing were published by this scrivener Arrighi.... The specimens of the Chancery hand which he was the first to put out in book form are to be found in Il Modo & Regola de scriuere littera corsiua ouer Cancellerescha (Rome, 1522)....
"For us the important point about Arrighi's printing is the design of his types. It was an italic of the Chancery Cursive character, more graceful and better proportioned than the italic of Aldus. But no fruitful comparison can be made between Aldus and Arrighi. The former was concerned to produce a series of popular texts, whereas Arrighi obviously specialized in limited editions of elegant pieces written by fashionable poets of the day. His object was the fine book, and his work must have attracted a good deal of favourable attention...."

Stanley Morison - "The italic types of Antonio Blado . Ludovico Arrighi," in his

Selected essays on the history of letter-forms, v.1 (1981), p.107

Giovanni Antonio Tagliente. Lo presente libro insegna la vera arte de lo excellente scrivere....Venice: Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio, 1536

"He carried into his type many more sorts than ct and st, as well as varieties of these two. Tagliente's punchcutter, while no mean engraver, does not compare with Arrighi's ... [however, his] italic remains a remarkable feat, since the engraver had attempted a dozen complicated ligatures and special sorts over and above the ampersand and long 's' combinations. ... Even so, it cannot be claimed that his italic achieved more than a moderate success - one reason, perhaps, being that it possessed too many of these special sorts to appeal to the printer no matter how they gladdened the calligrapher's eye."

Stanley Morison - Early Italian writing books (1990), p.63

"His writing book, first printed at Venice in 1524, has a long list of editions going on to 1678.... The last eight pages of Tagliente's manual are set in a type rendering the cancelleresca corsiva. .... In design it differs hardly at all from Arrighi's third, but it is rather more condensed and inclined."

Harry Carter - A view of early typography (1969), pp.120-21

Giovanni Battista Palatino. Libro nuovo d'imparare a scrivere tutte sorte lettere.... Rome: Baldassare Cartolari for Benedetto Giunta, 1540

"Palatino was the one calligrapher of his age. Before, the authors of Italian writing books had been of two classes: the civil servants, such as Arrighi or Tagliente, aiming their wares at young men aspiring to posts in bureaucracy or business; or alternatively hacks, like Verini, turning their hands to what promised to be a vendible line. Palatino found his way early to the kind of society Arrighi reached in his last years. He was a member of academies, a sonneteer, a man of scholarly interests, political sympathies, and social connections."

Stanley Morison - Early Italian writing books (1990), p.70

Bonaventura Castiglioni. Gallorum insubrum antiquae sedes. Milan: Giovanni Antonio Castiglione, 1541

Rodrigue de Benavides. Manifesti ... con pareri de illustrissimi principe et cavaglieri....Milan: Giovanni Antonio Castiglione, ca.1558

"Another Milanese printer, Giovanni Antonio Castellione, used a handsome cursive, akin to Vicentino's in several particulars; it has the same swash capitals, calligraphic ascenders and g, but it is upright.... Cursiveness and not inclination is the characteristic of chancery, but generations of printers have been so accustomed to the inclined italic that they have come to believe that the word means sloping."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.103

Jacopo Sannazaro. Sonetti, e canzioni. Rome: Antonio Blado, 1530

Michelangelo Biondo. De cognitione hominis per aspectum. Rome: Antonio Blado, 1544

"Vicentino's later type, that used in 1526 and 1527, proved to be the forerunner of an even larger group of formal cursives. It came into the possession of Antonio Blado, the greatest printer at Rome in the sixteenth century. Blado's edition of Sannazaro's Sonetti of 1530 is perhaps his earliest book printed in this fount, and was followed by many others."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs (1959), p.104

"Blado's larger italic is Arrighi's second fount, with modifications. I know of no earlier example than the Sonetti of Jacopo Sannazaro of 1530, a book with no other decoration than "piccoli ferri," of which Blado made great use. Examples of this type in a book of prose may be seen in the Tolomei of 1534....
"In the De cognitione hominis per aspectum of Angelus Blondus, 1544, still in the same italic, will be seen his copies of Giolito's larger initials."

A. F. Johnson - The Italian sixteenth century (1926), p.11

Paolo Giovio. Vita Sfortiae. Rome: Antonio Blado, 1539

Claudio Tolomei. Oratione de la pace. Rome: Antonio Blado, 1534

"Blado possessed also a fine italic of about 8-point size .... [His] noblest work will be found in such works as Paolo Giovio's Vita Sfortiae (1539) and Claudio Tolomei's Oratione de la Pace (1534)...."

Stanley Morison - "The italic types of Antonio Blado . Ludovico Arrighi," in his

Selected essays on the history of letter-forms v.1 (1981), p.109

Lodovico Martelli. Le rime volgari. Rome: Antonio Blado, 1533

"... Blado's reputation rests mainly on his italic types. He printed some admirable volumes in an Aldine italic, in particular the first editions of various works of Machiavelli, 1531 and 1532. The titles are in small roman capitals, which so far in Italy had always been used with italic founts.... The headings of chapters, etc., are in the same small capitals, and the text in Aldine italic.... No printer produced a better book in this style of type.

A.F. Johnson - The Italian sixteenth century (1926). p.11

The second copy has been printed on blue paper

Marco Antonio Falconi. Dell' incendio di Pozzuolo Naples: Giovanni Sultzbach, 1539

Laurentius Massorillus. Aureum sacorum hymnorum opus. Foligno: Giovanni Simone Cantagalli & Vincenzo Cantagalli, 1547

"...The influence of Blado was probably responsible for the Chancery Cursive types of Joannes Solcibachius [Giovanni Sultzbach] at Naples and of the Cantagalli at Foligno (cf. The Aureum sacorum hymnorum opus)...."

Stanley Morison -The italic types of Antonio Blado. Ludovico Arrighi,"

in his Selected essays on the history of letter-forms v.1 (1981), pp.109-10

Andrea Angelo. Genealogia d'imperatori romani et constantinopolitani. Rome: Valerio Dorico & Luigi Dorico, 1552

Giovanni Battista Modio. Il convito. Rome: Valerio Dorico & Luigi Dorico, 1554

"The brothers Dorici, contemporaries of Blado, had a similar type in which they printed...."

A. F. Johnson - Type designs. 2d ed. (1959), p.104

"Its [the italic's] debut in typography cannot be rated higher than as a partial success. It is much less elegant than serviceable, and its utility is seriously compromised by the presence of an enormous number of ligatures - Updike has counted no fewer than sixty-five tied letters in the Aldine Virgil, 1501, and Dante, 1502."

A. F. Johnson & Stanley Morison - "The chancery types of Italy and France," Fleuron 2 (1924), p.25