Italic, Part I - History

Before the invention of printing, manuscripts had to be copied by scribes. Italic was the result of lazy scribes but then replaced the unwieldy Uncial. The name results from the country which most books were written, and hence had the most book writing scribes, at the time. The word Italic should be pronounced "It-tal-lic" in honour of its origins and not "I-tal-lic" as it is sometimes heard. Italic is not a single kind of script. Any script that has a slant angle and is written with a broad edge pen can be considered Italic. This series will use the most clearly formed type of Italic, Chancery Italic, as an example to illustrate the basic construction of Italic letters.

A script to meet the needs
Italic was a result of the Renaissance. Before that, the only thing that needed to be written belonged to the church and there was no great rush to publish many copies. Hence booked were decorated (illuminated) with drawings and gilded. The speed at which the script could be written was of no great importance. It was probably during the renaissance that the word "sold out" was first related to books. Suddenly, being able to write fast was a useful skill. At that time, the official "book hand" (script used to write books) was Uncial, which was slow to write since it required multiple strokes for each letter. Scribes started seeking "short hand versions" of the letters which meant that they would write each letter with one stroke. Writing with quills, they were able to push their pens; something that modern calligraphers with crisp Italic nibs cannot, which explains why we need more than one stroke for most Italic letters nowadays. The writing slant was also a result of speeding up since the natural movement of the (right) hand is from bottom left to top right.

Evolution under constraints of the tool
The flag top (i.e. upward motion before verticals in letters d, b, p, h, m, etc.) and the ligature (i.e. the final upward stroke of the letters a, d, h ,m, n, etc.) was part a solution to a technical problem and a result of speedy writing. Quills don't always start on the first touch or they may put down too much ink at the first touch (which incidentally is sometimes a problem with dip pens too), the flag top allowed the ink flow to become consistent before writing the letter, it was also allowed the writer to have a second chance on the letter spacing - imagine starting straight down and finding that the letters were too close together. The ligature was most probably the result of lifting the pen too slowly when moving to the next letter. In Chancery Italic the letters are not linked, but Italic in which letters are linked (cursive Italic) do exist.