Figure 281
Types used on Gower’s Confessio Amantis: Berthelet, London, 1532
From a copy in Harvard College Library (facsimile), Google Books (scan)
1532
The text is set chiefly in two sizes of black-letter midway between batarde and lettre de forme, but the preface employs a purely English lettre de forme. Latin quotations are set in roman—a beautiful font—and running-titles in roman capitals. This mixture of roman and black-letter types is a sign of decadence, and prefigured a period when the rôle of the two types would be reversed, and black-letter would be used for “displayed” lines and such-like.