| Date: 1490 Designer:
Erhardt Ratdolt Foundry:
Ratdolt founder and printer Location:
Germany Current equivalent:
Typographer Rotunda (digitised by Dieter Steffmann) Technologies:
Metal (foundry)
Postscript
Truetype | | Famous for:
Distinctive early blackletter hybrid. Applications: Religious and Devotional Ubiquity:
Very rarely used Category:
Blackletter Rotunda Stress: Angled
Serifs: None | | Design history:
Erhardt Ratdolt was a pioneer of the 'incunabula' – the early period of book printing and publishing. The first printer to issue a typeface specimen sheet in 1486, like his countrymen Sweynheym and Pannartz, he moved south from the Bavarian town of Augsberg to Venice, Italy. He made at least ten blackletter faces, including this Rotunda (roundhand), which as a subcategory of the gothic blackletter of northern Europe, stylistically has the most in common with the script traditions of the Mediterranean countries. Like the Subiaco type of Sweynheym and Pannartz and the later Civilité of Granjon, it can be seen as a bridge between the gothic and roman traditions. | |  |
