Figure 120
Type imitating ancient Manuscript, used in Virgil: Manni, Florence
From a copy in the Boston Public Library (facsimile), Internet Archive (scan)
1741
A curious piece of Italian typography, very characteristic of eighteenth century, is an edition of Virgil (P. Vergilii Maronis, Codex Antiquissimus, A Rufio Turcio Aproniano V. C. Distinctus et Emendatus…Florentiæ. Typis Mannianis), published in 1741 at Florence, and printed by Joseph Manni, a person of scholarly tastes. It is set entirely in old style capitals with a few characters imitating those of an ancient and famous manuscript Virgil in rustic characters, in the Laurentian Library, Florence. The preface exhibits a fairly accurate engraved reproduction of a few lines of the modal on which the book was based, and in the text the ingenious introduction of but three specially cut letters gives the general effect of a font of “rustic” type.