| Date: 1557 Designer:
Robert Granjon Foundry:
Granjon founder and printer / Enschedé Location:
Lyons, France Current equivalent:
HTF St Augustin Civilité See also:
Enschede Civilité, Deberny and Peignot Civilité, English Secretary Hand, ATF Civilité
Technologies:
Metal (foundry)
Postscript
Truetype | | Famous for:
One of the oldest original script typefaces. Applications: Historical Script Ubiquity:
Rarely used Category:
Humanist Script Stress: Angled
Serifs: None | | Design history:
This script, used during the renaissance as a general written hand, shows the qualities of quill pen writing, and its name is a generic descriptor of a style of writing, like 'secretary hand'. As a printing type, it represents a crossover between blackletter and calligraphic styles, similar to the Subiaco type of Sweynheym and Pannartz. During its history, the gothic component of Civilité was successively watered down by various foundries, culminating in the ATF attempt to anglicize it completely in the 1920s. The recent 'Historical Allsorts' version by Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere Jones is probably the most accurate. The name Civilité comes from the title of an early French translation of a book by Erasmus ('De civilitate morum puerilium libellus') in which the typeface was used. | |  |
