From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V7 #95 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Monday, March 25 2002 Volume 07 : Number 095 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand [scribes]: Some sites of interest Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand [scribes]: Burnet Psalter on line Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... [scribes]: Re: Humanist Hand Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... [scribes]: Re:Humanist Hand Re: Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... [scribes]: Re: Humanist Hand (long) RE: Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 21:28:01 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand > Does any one know where I can find samples of the Humanist hand?lluminated > samples would be ideal but and document will do. Hmmmm, not super familiar with it, but doesn't the Farnese Hours have that hand in it? I don't personally own a copy, but I seem to recall judging a Humanist calligraphy piece at a recent either Regional or Kingdom Arts and Sciences Faire that had been taken from Farnese. At least I think so, anyway.....................Late period isn't my personal forté. My personal preference is for anything up to about 1400 or so. Some early 15th century, but mostly earlier period works. ~Saradwen Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 21:33:26 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: [scribes]: Some sites of interest The Pierpont Morgan Library on-line, Mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts collection: http://www.morganlibrary.org/collections/medren/html/index.html The Institute for the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts in Denmark (a really exceptional site that you could spend HOURS upon HOURS exploring!!!) http://www.chd.dk/index.html Just a few to keep you glued to your computer whenever you get bored! (Like that's gonna ever happen to any of us!) ~Saradwen Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 21:56:35 -0500 From: "Helen Schultz" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand Brigit: This site contains an Antiphonal done in LARGE humanist... hope it helps. http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/treasures/antiphonal/ KHvS - ----- Original Message ----- > > Does any one know where I can find samples of the Humanist hand?lluminated > samples would be ideal but and document will do. > > Brigit > "Honor servire est" > The Honor is to Serve > =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 22:42:00 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: [scribes]: Burnet Psalter on line For those familiar with the Aberdeen Bestiary, the University of Aberdeen has a new MS. on line called the Burnet Psalter. It's just gorgeous and can be found at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/historic/collects/bps/index.html Enjoy! ~Saradwen, who could spend all night on line ogling at and drooling over digital MSS.!! Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 22:53:47 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand > This site contains an Antiphonal done in LARGE humanist... hope it helps. > > http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/treasures/antiphonal/ Oooooooooooooooooh, OK, THAT hand!! I was thinking of a later period hand I judged once, something around 16th century-ish that was referred to as "Renaissance Humanist hand". Lovely site, BTW, thanks for that one! I'll add it to my already way too long Illumination bookmark file!! ~Saradwen, who has wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay too many Illumination sites bookmarked already! Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 07:30:54 -0500 From: "Helen Schultz" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Humanist Hand Actually, Saradwen (and the others on the list), after I sent that link, I got to thinking that the one used in this Antiphonal is probably actually Gothic Roundhand, which was the predecessor of the Humanist hand... but they are VERY similar in many ways. As to the site, I got it from this list shortly after we started it, so don't recall who it was who posted it. There are always new wonderful sites to visit, though. KHvS - ----- Original Message ----- > > This site contains an Antiphonal done in LARGE humanist... hope it helps. > > > > http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/treasures/antiphonal/ > > Oooooooooooooooooh, OK, THAT hand!! I was thinking of a later period hand I > judged once, something around 16th century-ish that was referred to as > "Renaissance Humanist hand". > > Lovely site, BTW, thanks for that one! I'll add it to my already way too > long Illumination bookmark file!! > > ~Saradwen, who has wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay too many Illumination sites bookmarked > already! > Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 08:12:31 EST From: KMcWhyte@aol.com Subject: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... FYI, in the East Kingdom, the incoming King has just posted his whims, and included in there that his reign will be "Pre- Magna Carta". Does anyone think this could be interpreted that we scribes out here "cannot" say no to an assignment during his reign, or am I taking that comment out of context?? - --Lady Kayleigh McWhyte, "Mercenary Scribe" (East) E.Frank, Long Island, NY =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 09:51:57 -0500 (EST) From: "Lyle H. Gray" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... > FYI, in the East Kingdom, the incoming King has just posted > his whims, and included in there that his reign will be "Pre- > Magna Carta". > > Does anyone think this could be interpreted that we scribes > out here "cannot" say no to an assignment during his reign, > or am I taking that comment out of context?? It's a reference to the Baronies, not the scribes. =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 07:04:58 -0800 From: Doug Brownell / Thomas Brownwell Subject: [scribes]: Re: Humanist Hand Greetings unto Brigit My three favorite resources for medieval manuscripts are: G. Bologna, "Illuminated Manuscripts" J. Backhouse, "The Illuminated Page" C. de Hamel, "A History of Illuminated Manuscripts" All three have beautiful examples near the end of 15th and 16th C Italian hands, including Humanist. I especially like the example in Bologna, pg. 133, with a beautiful border of white vine and a clear (large :-) text that's easy to disect for penstrokes. In Backhouse, there's a clear example on pg. 223 with trompe l'oeuil. The whole last chapter of de Hamel, pp. 223 forward, is dedicated to this hand / time period, but there are fewer example that are magnified to show the hand as well. For really beautiful examples of *just* calligraphy, I grab these two: S. Knight, "Historical Scripts, 2nd ed." M. Brown, "A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600" Knight's book has many more examples of Humanist, including cursive forms. Neither book includes any illumination to speak of - their objective is to provide clear examples of calligraphic hands. I prefer Knight's book over Brown's because he always includes a blow-up of each hand, plus a 5-10 word strip that's actual size for those of us who want to recreate *everything* :-) On the other hand, Brown's book transcribes a portion of each manuscript page which is a boon for figuring out ligatures, contractions, and odd-shaped letters. When used in tandem with one of the Illum. Man. books above, these two books are a wonderful resource. All five books are readily available (a quick check of http://www.bookfinder.com found all of them :-). I highly recommend all of these to any calligraphy and illumination enthusiasts. Yours in service, Thomas - -- - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Douglas Brownell AKA Thomas Brownwell, Calligrapher, brownell@san.rr.com Dancer,Silversmith,Singer,Cobbler,... San Diego, California Barony of Calafia, Caid The 4 elements = good physics:: Or, a fountain, a chief rayonny gules. Goutte enough herald:: (Fieldless) A goutte barry wavy azure and argent. =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 10:59:47 EST From: KMcWhyte@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... I kinda figured I might be reading too much into it; I've been in the SCA for almost 4 years and have yet to run into a pair of royals who couldn't accept the word "no", that I'm aware of. The Signet's (Duchess Katherine) always been very much understanding of it, and I appreciate that we have her looking out for us. But as for the royal side of it, I never quite understood how much say they have in the role of the scribes until recently. Thanks for clarifying the extent of the Pre- Magna Carta declaration, everyone. - --Kayleigh =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 11:39:08 EST From: RenScribe@aol.com Subject: [scribes]: Re:Humanist Hand - --part1_a9.24d9826d.29d0acac_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does any one know where I can find samples of the Humanist hand?lluminated samples would be ideal but and document will do. _Bibliotheca Corviniana_ contains many examples of Humanistic and Italic script... plus a lot of Humanistic/Italic/Rotunda hybrids. I was able to get it a few years ago on interlibrary loan, but was able to find and purchase my own copy last fall. If you get your hands on the book, make sure you read the chapter in the beginning about the calligraphic scripts used. A web search for Attavante may be able to bring up some examples of humanistic script online. He was the illuminator for many of the pages and is far more famous than the calligraphers. A quick Google search on "Humanistic hand" turned up this M157 Leaf from a GradualManuscript on vellum. France, Paris, ca. 1550. http://www.mackusco.com/musicleaves.htm If you haven't worked with the hand before, I'd recommend _The Art of Calligraphy_ by David Harris as a starting point. Eibhlin - --part1_a9.24d9826d.29d0acac_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does any one know where I can find samples of the Humanist hand?lluminated
samples would be ideal but and document will do.


_Bibliotheca Corviniana_ contains many examples of Humanistic and Italic script... plus a lot of Humanistic/Italic/Rotunda hybrids. I was able to get it a few years ago on interlibrary loan, but was able to find and purchase my own copy last fall. If you get your hands on the book, make sure you read the chapter in the beginning about the calligraphic scripts used.

A web search for Attavante may be able to bring up some examples of humanistic script online. He was the illuminator for many of the pages and is far more famous than the calligraphers.

A quick Google search on "Humanistic hand" turned up this
M157 Leaf from a GradualManuscript on vellum. France, Paris, ca. 1550.
http://www.mackusco.com/musicleaves.htm

If you haven't worked with the hand before, I'd recommend _The Art of Calligraphy_ by David Harris as a starting point.

Eibhlin


 - --part1_a9.24d9826d.29d0acac_boundary-- =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 11:38:50 -0500 From: "Ed Roehre" Subject: Re: Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... > I kinda figured I might be reading too much into it; I've been in the SCA for almost 4 years and have yet to run into a pair of royals who couldn't accept the word "no", that I'm aware of. The Signet's (Duchess Katherine) always been very much understanding of it, and I appreciate that we have her looking out for us. But as for the royal side of it, I never quite understood how much say they have in the role of the scribes until recently. > > Thanks for clarifying the extent of the Pre- Magna Carta declaration, everyone. > > --Kayleigh Just keep in mind Kayleigh, that no matter who says what, this is a volunteer organization. If you don't have the time to do it, you don't, period. And nobody can tell you otherwise. Tin hat or not. Edward Middle Kingdom =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:17:02 -0500 From: Elizabeth Blatt Subject: [scribes]: Re: Humanist Hand (long) - --============_-1195042270==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable At 8:59 PM -0500 3/24/02, Barbara Bishop wrote: >Does any one know where I can find samples of the Humanist hand? There are a bunch of different possible resources for humanist hand, amongst which you'll find a lot of variety, there really being several different types of scripts in the "humanist" family. I'm going to go into a bit of an historical lead-in, because humanist scripts were, in part, as much a political and philosophical development as an academic and functional one: which script you use might be influenced by their history and differing period uses. Also, I've also got a bit of extra time on my hands: this is a more interesting use of it than the other possibilities coming immediately to mind. :) Some of this information might be really obvious; so please feel welcome to skip it if it is. It's also going to be really, really, really boiled down. In the 14th and 15th centuries, Italy was not a single country: it was a conglomeration of different city-states, each with their own dialect. The city states (think Florence, Naples, etc) were each jostling with each other for supremacy, and looking through all facets of their cultures to point out aspects that made one superior to another, or superior to the rest of Europe. There was also some experimentation going on with forms of government. In part because of all of this, there was an interest--shared across many levels of society in the search for new models. This interest led to a re-evaluation of ancient Roman and Greek civilizations, their art, writings, architecture, etc. The humanists were (and this is a really gross simplification) a bunch of people, primarily men, who believed that the medieval approach to textual interpretation was misguided, and that--if one really wanted to understand what the author had intended--one must understand the cultural context within which that author was writing. So, to further their understanding of Roman culture, they went looking for Roman writings; and found that some of the texts they had believed were lost actually still existed in the morass of private and monastery libraries (there being no systematic approach to cataloguing holdings). If they were lucky, they'd turn up a lost text. A fair copy would be made, and that copy taken, or sent, back to Italy where it would be copied by other people. As a result, a lot of time was spent copying manuscripts, which might often deteriorating, in what were often badly-lit, uncomfortable conditions (Bracciolini's letters are wonderfully descriptive of this whole search-and-copy process; see Two Renaissance Book Hunters: the Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicholaus de Niccolis, trans. by Phyllis Walter Goodhart Gordon, Columbia University Press, 1991). Some folks began to complain about the time it took to write these down, and how hard it could get to read their copies as they got older--but they especially found their scripts lacking when compared to the delightfully uncluttered non-gothic script of the manuscripts they were copying. This is where it gets even more interesting. Textual criticism was in its infancy, and scholars were only just beginning to learn to date manuscripts by traits of the text. They hadn't yet gotten around to learning how to date manuscripts by traits of the script; as a result, they formed the mistaken impression that caroline miniscule--the dominant script of the 8th and 9th centuries, which had been the most significant period of pre-Renaissance interest in book development and textual reproduction--was the script of Classical Roman antiquity, the focus of their research (this is also why you see a revived interest in white vine illumination, which had origins in caroline decoration). Caroline miniscule had, itself, been an attempt (among other things, some of which were as political in nature to what influenced with humanist scripts) to simplify scripts based on Roman cursive into something more closely approximating the more readable Roman capitals/rustic capitals/uncial scripts. One of the influences guiding the adoption humanist scripts is, as mentioned above, that Italian city-states were looking for methods to distinguish themselves. They did this, in part, by rejecting Germanic influences, among which were counted gothic scripts. The nobility and heads of state who had been financing a lot of this exploration and research through patronage were interested in such visible results of their patronage as well as the more abstract increase in knowledge; additionally, support for humanist interests had quite a bit of social cachet, and use of the script could be identified as that support. Also, some of the humanists worked for chanceries and, therefore, had a lot of influence in deciding which scripts were used for different types of documents. Lastly, due to certain interests among the Italian city-states in a unified, Italian identity with a single ruler and single language, promoting a new, non-Gothic script also tied into nationalist and identity issues. So, initially, the Italian humanists tried to revive caroline miniscule, and they got really close; but it wasn't just one person trying to create a potential new script: there were a bunch of humanists, each suggesting a different possibility. Petrarch, Poggio Bracciolini, Pietro Bembo, and Niccolo Niccoli made slightly different suggestions. There were suggestions for book scrips, for chancery scripts, and for personal scripts. Here's an online example of the humanist miniscule: http://www.lub.lu.se/fridhemsborg/English/Manuex/manuex14.htm -- This was a humanist book script of the early to mid 15th century, one intended for display (and it would be where you'd find highly decorative illumination), based on Bracciolin's revival of the caroline miniscule. After the initial popularity of the revived miniscule, there were further attempts at evaluating the script by comparing it to antique Roman monumental inscriptions; which, along with the humanist cursive below, influenced the direction of humanist scripts. Here's an online example of humanist cursive, also known as chancery italic (which was developed by Pietro Bembo, based on Niccoli's original suggestions): http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/c-humanism/images/human1= 2.jpg - -- This script, as you can tell by the "chancery" part of one name for it--is more business-like in intended use than a book or display script; this would be something used for first copies of manuscripts, personal documents, or business documents, and was used during the 15th and 16th centuries. The chancery italic script lasted longer than the revived miniscule. It was this which was adapted, in the 16th century by Arrighi and Palatino, into "Roman" typefaces for printed materials; and evolved into the "italic" or "humanist italic" script which saw use outside of Italy as well. The identification as Italy as a source for art and culture helped the script's adoption: use of the script could add to the cultured appearance of a work. By the mid-16th century in England, it was recommended that women be taught to write in italic, because it was viewed as visually pleasing and easy to learn; and, while business letters to one's peers might be written in chancery or bastard scripts, italic could be used when writing to one's social superior, to lend a more cultured air to the text. By mid-century books in England are printed using Roman typefaces for special effects or because the book is especially literary in nature; by the end of the century, it was becoming the standard typeface family in use. Some print resources would be: Bernard Bischoff, Latin Paleography, trans. D=E1ibh=ED O. Cr=F3in=EDn and David Ganz. Cambridge UP, 1990. De la Mare, A. C. The Handwriting of the Italian Humanists. Oxford UP, 1973 (Mostly letters and a few single page reproductions of illuminated manuscripts). This book, IIRC (it /might/ be the =46airbank one), has an interesting example of two letters by the same author, but to recipients of differing rank: the letter to the social superior was written in a more decorative, flourished italic than the one to the author's peer. =46airbank, A. B. W. Renaissance Handwriting: an Anthology of Italic Scripts, 1960. Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta. Getty Museum, 1992. -- This is a mid-16th century book with lots of calligraphic examples, illuminated in 1599. It has /tons/ of humanist script examples (it was made as a display of all the scripts a famous calligrapher could write in, and it was largely created for its artistic value--not as a business exemplar), of the plain and highly decorative sorts. It also has an excerpt of some of the decorative, illuminated italic (and gothic) scripts printed as Nature Illuminated in 1997 for a much more affordable $15. Wardrop, James. The Script of Humanism: Some Aspects of Humanistic Script, 1460-1560. Clarendon Press, 1963. Another facsimile with an example is The Farnese Hours; though its use of cancellersca formata is the only known use in a book: it was more a chancery (business) type of script. It dates to the mid-16th century. The decoration is definitely warring with the script for the attention of the viewer, rather than supporting or emphasizing or decorating the script itself: the business of producing illuminated manuscripts had more or less been subsumed by professional printers by this point; the few illuminated manuscripts made during the second half of the 16th century (and, to a slightly lesser degree, the first half as well) are more the products of professional artists whose income did not rely upon illumination, but on other, more lucrative types of art to which illumination was an occasional venture. Also, pretty much any book which provides an overview of illumination would have examples. You could find more online samples using the names of the scripts as search terms in Google; I just picked a couple out of the bunches available, to greater and lesser degress of decoration. Hope this helps! Even if it was too much info, though, I did have fun writing it. :) Elianora Mathewes Dominion of Myrkfaelinn, AE - --============_-1195042270==_ma============ Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re: Humanist Hand (long)
At 8:59 PM -0500 3/24/02, Barbara Bishop wrote:
Does any one know where I can find samples of the Humanist hand?

There are a bunch of different possible resources for humanist hand, amongst which you'll find a lot of variety, there really being several different types of scripts in the "humanist" family.

I'm going to go into a bit of an historical lead-in, because humanist scripts were, in part, as much a political and philosophical development as an academic and functional one: which script you use might be influenced by their history and differing period uses.  Also, I've also got a bit of extra time on my hands: this is a more interesting use of it than the other possibilities coming immediately to mind. :)

Some of this information might be really obvious; so please feel welcome to skip it if it is.  It's also going to be really, really, really boiled down.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, Italy was not a single country: it was a conglomeration of different city-states, each with their own dialect.  The city states (think Florence, Naples, etc) were each jostling with each other for supremacy, and looking through all facets of their cultures to point out aspects that made one superior to another, or superior to the rest of Europe.  There was also some experimentation going on with forms of government.

In part because of all of this, there was an interest--shared across many levels of society in the search for new models.  This interest led to a re-evaluation of ancient Roman and Greek civilizations, their art, writings, architecture, etc.  The humanists were (and this is a really gross simplification) a bunch of people, primarily men, who believed that the medieval approach to textual interpretation was misguided, and that--if one really wanted to understand what the author had intended--one must understand the cultural context within which that author was writing.

So, to further their understanding of Roman culture, they went looking for Roman writings; and found that some of the texts they had believed were lost actually still existed in the morass of private and monastery libraries (there being no systematic approach to cataloguing holdings). If they were lucky, they'd turn up a lost text. A fair copy would be made, and that copy taken, or sent, back to Italy where it would be copied by other people.

As a result, a lot of time was spent copying manuscripts, which might often deteriorating, in what were often badly-lit, uncomfortable conditions (Bracciolini's letters are wonderfully descriptive of this whole search-and-copy process; see Two Renaissance Book Hunters: the Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicholaus de Niccolis, trans. by Phyllis Walter Goodhart Gordon, Columbia University Press, 1991). Some folks began to complain about the time it took to write these down, and how hard it could get to read their copies as they got older--but they especially found their scripts lacking when compared to the delightfully uncluttered non-gothic script of the manuscripts they were copying.

This is where it gets even more interesting.  Textual criticism was in its infancy, and scholars were only just beginning to learn to date manuscripts by traits of the text.  They hadn't yet gotten around to learning how to date manuscripts by traits of the script; as a result, they formed the mistaken impression that caroline miniscule--the dominant script of the 8th and 9th centuries, which had been the most significant period of pre-Renaissance interest in book development and textual reproduction--was the script of Classical Roman antiquity, the focus of their research (this is also why you see a revived interest in white vine illumination, which had origins in caroline decoration). Caroline miniscule had, itself, been an attempt (among other things, some of which were as political in nature to what influenced with humanist scripts) to simplify scripts based on Roman cursive into something more closely approximating the more readable Roman capitals/rustic capitals/uncial scripts.

One of the influences guiding the adoption humanist scripts is, as mentioned above, that Italian city-states were looking for methods to distinguish themselves.  They did this, in part, by rejecting Germanic influences, among which were counted gothic scripts.  The nobility and heads of state who had been financing a lot of this exploration and research through patronage were interested in such visible results of their patronage as well as the more abstract increase in knowledge; additionally, support for humanist interests had quite a bit of social cachet, and use of the script could be identified as that support.  Also, some of the humanists worked for chanceries and, therefore, had a lot of influence in deciding which scripts were used for different types of documents.  Lastly, due to certain interests among the Italian city-states in a unified, Italian identity with a single ruler and single language, promoting a new, non-Gothic script also tied into nationalist and identity issues.

So, initially, the Italian humanists tried to revive caroline miniscule, and they got really close; but it wasn't just one person trying to create a potential new script: there were a bunch of humanists, each suggesting a different possibility.  Petrarch, Poggio Bracciolini, Pietro Bembo, and Niccolo Niccoli made slightly different suggestions.  There were suggestions for book scrips, for chancery scripts, and for personal scripts.

Here's an online example of the humanist miniscule: http://www.lub.lu.se/fridhemsborg/English/Manuex/manuex14.htm  -- This was a humanist book script of the early to mid 15th century, one intended for display (and it would be where you'd find highly decorative illumination), based on Bracciolin's revival of the caroline miniscule.

After the initial popularity of the revived miniscule, there were further attempts at evaluating the script by comparing it to antique Roman monumental inscriptions; which, along with the humanist cursive below, influenced the direction of humanist scripts.

Here's an online example of humanist cursive, also known as chancery italic (which was developed by Pietro Bembo, based on Niccoli's original suggestions):
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/c-humanism/images/human12.jpg  -- This script, as you can tell by the "chancery" part of one name for it--is more business-like in intended use than a book or display script; this would be something used for first copies of manuscripts, personal documents, or business documents, and was used during the 15th and 16th centuries.

The chancery italic script lasted longer than the revived miniscule.  It was this which was adapted, in the 16th century by Arrighi and Palatino, into "Roman" typefaces for printed materials; and evolved into the "italic" or "humanist italic" script which saw use outside of Italy as well. The identification as Italy as a source for art and culture helped the script's adoption: use of the script could add to the cultured appearance of a work. By the mid-16th century in England, it was recommended that women be taught to write in italic, because it was viewed as visually pleasing and easy to learn; and, while business letters to one's peers might be written in chancery or bastard scripts, italic could be used when writing to one's social superior, to lend a more cultured air to the text.  By mid-century books in England are printed using Roman typefaces for special effects or because the book is especially literary in nature; by the end of the century, it was becoming the standard typeface family in use.

Some print resources would be:
Bernard Bischoff, Latin Paleography, trans. D=E1ibh=ED O. Cr=F3in=EDn and David Ganz. Cambridge UP, 1990.

De la Mare, A. C. The Handwriting of the Italian Humanists. Oxford UP, 1973  (Mostly letters and a few single page reproductions of illuminated manuscripts).  This book, IIRC (it /might/ be the Fairbank one), has an interesting example of two letters by the same author, but to recipients of differing rank: the letter to the social superior was written in a more decorative, flourished italic than the one to the author's peer.

Fairbank, A. B. W. Renaissance Handwriting: an Anthology of Italic Scripts, 1960.

Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta.  Getty Museum, 1992. -- This is a mid-16th century book with lots of calligraphic examples, illuminated in 1599.   It has /tons/ of humanist script examples (it was made as a display of all the scripts a famous calligrapher could write in, and it was largely created for its artistic value--not as a business exemplar), of the plain and highly decorative sorts.  It also has an excerpt of some of the decorative, illuminated italic (and gothic) scripts printed as Nature Illuminated in 1997 for a much more affordable $15.

Wardrop, James. The Script of Humanism: Some Aspects of Humanistic Script, 1460-1560.  Clarendon Press, 1963.

Another facsimile with an example is The Farnese Hours; though its use of cancellersca formata is the only known use in a book: it was more a chancery (business) type of script. It dates to the mid-16th century.  The decoration is definitely warring with the script for the attention of the viewer, rather than supporting or emphasizing or decorating the script itself: the business of producing illuminated manuscripts had more or less been subsumed by professional printers by this point; the few illuminated manuscripts made during the second half of the 16th century (and, to a slightly lesser degree, the first half as well) are more the products of professional artists whose income did not rely upon illumination, but on other, more lucrative types of art to which illumination was an occasional venture.

Also, pretty much any book which provides an overview of illumination would have examples.

You could find more online samples using the names of the scripts as search terms in Google; I just picked a couple out of the bunches available, to greater and lesser degress of decoration.

Hope this helps!  Even if it was too much info, though, I did have fun writing it. :)

Elianora Mathewes
Dominion of Myrkfaelinn, AE

- --============_-1195042270==_ma============-- =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 13:20:40 -0500 From: ESTAVASH@cs.com Subject: RE: Re: [scribes]: Saying No, continued.... Another thing to consider-- as my lord is always reminding me (since I tend to have a bad case of "helium hand" sometimes), When I am Mistress Elyn, I serve the Crown to the best of my ability, and I am theirs to command in all matters. However, there is this other person, Ellen, who has to work full-time, shop, pay for art supplies, clean the house, and drive to events. Mistress Elyn only exists in Ellen's free time, and Ellen has not sworn fealty to anyone. If Ellen doesn't have time to make a scroll, then Mistress Elyn is obliged to decline the request. In my experience, most Royalty understand that mundane matters take precedence, even if some of them don't understand exactly how much work goes into scrolls. After all, they too have mundane lives. - --Ellen/Elyn KMcWhyte@aol.com wrote: >I kinda figured I might be reading too much into it; I've been in the SCA for almost 4 years and have yet to run into a pair of royals who couldn't accept the word "no", that I'm aware of. The Signet's (Duchess Katherine) always been very much understanding of it, and I appreciate that we have her looking out for us. But as for the royal side of it, I never quite understood how much say they have in the role of the scribes until recently. > >Thanks for clarifying the extent of the Pre- Magna Carta declaration, everyone. > >--Kayleigh =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V7 #95 ****************************