Re: VMs: MS408 Character Development

["Maurizio M. Gavioli" <mmg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!

At 22:56 04-07-05, Nick Pelling wrote:
> At 13:31 04/07/2005 +0200, Maurizio Gavioli wrote:
> > Printing typeface design is not a semi-automatic activity as handwriting 
> > is: it is very pondered, carefully planned beforehand and has to with 
> > drawing much more than with writing.
>
> Didn't the Quattrocento history of using pure geometric forms (like lines 
> & circular arcs) to construct alphabet shapes stem from Leon Battista 
> Alberti: but even if earlier than Alberti, surely it sprung from a similar 
> humanist / neo-classicist mindset? Printing just happened to be arriving 
> at the same (or a little later) time, IIRC?

You are right (I think the greatest example of this is the _De divina 
proportione_ di Luca Pacioli), but the point does not change: these 
practices had again little to do with writing, but with drawing, as it was 
the case also for inscriptions.

> > It might apply to the _exempla_, yet to determine, that the VM script 
> > author was familiar with and had in mind while devising his script, 
> > particularly if we assume that, as it is the case in most script 
> > creations, the script is a re-cast, with different glyphs and a few 
> > oddities, of the writing system (and maybe of the linguistic system too!) 
> > to which the author has been mainly exposed.
>
> Given the multiple influences apparent within the VMs' alphabet, perhaps 
> "of the writing systems" might be more accurate.

IMHO, these "multiple influences" for the greatest part are more 
suggestions of individual contributors (me included, of course!), some of 
them quite peculiar, than established or 'grounded' acquisitions.

Anyway, I have no problems with the plurality you suggest, although I think 
that one system is likely to predominate (I'll explain why in another post, 
otherwise this will become too long).

>  There's definitely room for someone to try to deconstruct the individual 
> letter forms along the lines you suggest: a forensic analysis of the 
> alphabet, if you like.

Most of it has already been done by Barbara Barrett, if I remember correctly.

> > On one hand, we may safely assume that the VM script author was familiar 
> > with the Latin abbreviation system (as he was familiar with the _littera 
> > moderna_ stroke assimilation system). This is a point in favour of the 
> > theory that those sings in the VMS are indeed abbreviations.
>
> Or similarly, that these Latin abbreviations were also things within the 
> scribal repertoire.

This is more or less what I was trying to say in my next paragraph...

> > On the other hand, many of those abbreviation-like signs, like for 
> > instance EVA 'g' or EVA 'm' (but also 'r', 's' or 'u'), are very obvious 
> > 'pen turns' which may come quite spontaneously to anybody with the 
> > penmanship of a late Middle Age scholar. This might mean that those signs 
> > do not have the same meaning (or at least a similar function) they had in 
> > the 'normal writing', but that they are simply common, or well-practiced, 
> > graphic material borrowed into the script, like many 'full characters' of 
> > the script.
>
> Perhaps the most interesting page in this regard is f105v: I get the 
> feeling from this page that the writer was finally starting to enjoy using 
> the alphabet/script - the writing feels fluid to me here, with generally 
> more subtle flourishes than elsewhere, and with a letter size comfortably 
> intermediate (I believe?) between Herbal A and Herbal B, which are 
> respectively too big and too small.
>
> Comments?

Well, you have a far greater familiarity with the ms. than I have, and I 
can easily share your feelings.

Cheers,

        Maurizio


 Maurizio M. Gavioli -  VistaMare  Software
 via San Bernardo 5, I-16030 Pieve Ligure, ITALY
 http://www.vistamaresoft.com/

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