Also written as Juan de Yciar or Juan de Ycíar or Ioannes de Yciar. Spanish calligrapher, mathematician and writing master, 1515-1590. Author of Arte Subtillissima (1553, Zaragossa) and Arte Breve (1559, Zaragossa). According to Heitlinger, he was born in 1523, not 1515, in the Basque city of Durango (Vizcaya). He studied calligraphy with Tagliente and Palatino, and invented the so-called Spanish Bastarda, and drew many beautiful chancery alphabets.

Image of Spanish gothic capitals (1550).

He published Recopilación subtillísima intitulada Orthographia Practica in 1547-1548 (Zaragoza), the first writing manual in Spain. He also published Arte Subtilissima por la cual se enseña a escribir perfectamente in 1548 (8 editions from 1548 to 1566).

Recopilación subtillísima intitulada Orthographia Practica was republished in 2003 by Jakider. From that book, his beautiful Latina initial caps. Scan of his Spanish renaissance alphabet, other alphabets, Ave Maria (1548, from Arte Subtilissima), chancery hand, and Cancellaresca gruesca (1548). Biblioteca complutense de Madrid has images on-line.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Juan de Iciar
Google search page

INTERNAL LINKS
The Spanish type scene ⦿ Basque fonts ⦿ Calligraphic typefaces ⦿ History of type ⦿ Ornamental caps typefaces ⦿ Chancery hand, cancellaresca ⦿ Bastarda / Bâtarde / Schwabacher ⦿ Uncial typefaces ⦿

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