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LUC DEVROYE


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Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi da Vicenza

Influential Italian printer, writing master and calligrapher, b. ca. 1475-1480, d. 1527, aka Ludovico Vicentino (degli Arrighi), or Ludovico il Vicentino. Around 1510 he was a bookseller in Rome. He was employed as a scribe at the Apostolic Chancery in 1515. Author in 1522 of the writing manual La Operina, da imparare di scrivere littera cancellarescha, which was the first one for popular use. La Operina contains the first printed example of Chancery Cursive. In 1523, he wrote a sequel, Il modo de temperare le penne, a beautiful and influential typographic manual.

Roderick Cave writes in his The Private Press: The first part of this was printed entirely from wood blocks, but the second part, Il Modo di Temperare le Penne, contains several pages printed in a very fine italic typeface modeled on the cancellaresca formata hand. The type was fairly obviously derived from the hand used by Arrighi himself; it seems likely that the punches were cut by his partner, who can with reasonable certainty be identified as Lautizio de Bartolomeo dei Rotelli, of whose skill as an engraver of seals Benvenuto Cellini speaks with respect in his Autobiography. He started printing in 1524 and designed his own italic typefaces for his work, which were widely emulated.

His letterforms were revived in the 20th century by designers such as Plumet (1925), Stanley Morison (Monotype Blado (1923, Stanley Morrison) is based on Arrighi's lettering---it was unfortunately named after the printer Antonio Blado who used the type in the 1530s; the name Monotype Arrighi would have been more appropriate), Frederic Warde (in his Arrighi Italic, 1925), Robert Slimbach (one could say that his memory lives on through fonts like Adobe Jenson Multiple Master), Ladislav Mandel (Cancellaresca), Willibald Kraml (Vicentino, 1992), Paulo W (as Volitiva), Gunnlaugur S.E. Briem (Briem Operina), James Grieshaber (P22 Operina), Michelle Dixon (Arrighi Copybook), Gilles Le Corre (1522 Vicentino, 2011) and Jonathan Hoefler (Requiem Text).

Arrighi's last printing was dated shortly before the sack of Rome (1527), during which he was probably killed.

Sample pics: Fantastic ornamental capitals (1522), roman capitals (1522), Italian capitals, Italian minuscule.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ History of type ⦿ Type design in Italy ⦿ Calligraphic typefaces ⦿ Books on type design ⦿ Chancery hand, cancellaresca ⦿








file name: Ludovicus Vicentini 1522


file name: Ludovico Degli Arrighi Vicentino Alphabet 1522


file name: James Grieshaber P22 Operina Pro 2003


file name: James Grieshaber P22 Operina Pro 2003


file name: James Grieshaber P22 Operina Pro 2003


file name: James Grieshaber P22 Operina Pro 2003


file name: James Grieshaber P22 Operina Pro 2003


file name: James Grieshaber P22 Operina Pro 2003


file name: various/arrighi3


file name: various/arrighi4


file name: Italian Capitals by Lud Vicentino 16th Century a


file name: Italian Capitals by Lud Vicentino 16th Century b


file name: Italian Minuscule by Vicentino 16th Century


file name: Ludovico Degli Arrighi Vicentino La Operina Roma 1522


file name: Vicentino 1525


file name: Vicentinodi Ludovico Arrighi Corsivo 1524 1526







Luc Devroye ⦿ School of Computer Science ⦿ McGill University Montreal, Canada H3A 2K6 ⦿ lucdevroye@gmail.com ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org ⦿ http://luc.devroye.org/fonts.html