Figure 219

Round Spanish Black-letter, from Lucas’ Arte de Escrivir, Madrid

From Strange’s Alphabets (facsimile), Arte de Escrevir de Francisco Lucas (scan, pp. 105–106)

1577

This round Gothic letter in all its splendour was used in Spain for lettering titles on vellum-bound books—printed in roman type—all through the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century; and the illustration of part of a Gothic alphabet in this hand may be compared with Plantin’s canon d’Espagne, and some examples of old gothic fonts, which were its type equivalents.

See chapter 16