A few Emigre fonts have similar a’s. Malaga definitely, and Tribune too, I think. Then there’s Xavier Dupre’s Absara. Maybe even Weiss would qualify.

One of the major book romans with that style a is Bembo, based on the type cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldus Manutius’ 1495 edition of De Aetna by Pietro Bembo in Venice. Adobe make a good Bembo

Here’s a picture:

Compare it to Adobe’s and it becomes obvious the one I used here lacks authenticity, the bowl being too tall and not square enuff.

Also look at Monotype’s Poliphilus, used by Manutius to print the infamous Hypnerotomachia Polyphilus book of fantastic nonsense.

...the way they’re squared off makes them seem rugged and virile to my eyes.

Rigor, robustness, tension. The easiest way to get it is to make the curves and letter form squarish. Presently in some guises I guess it also goes by the name of “hyperellipse”.

j a m e s

Here’s a quirky one I fell for early on—Garth Graphic.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen it discussed on this board.

Probably because it really reeks of the photo type era.

Probably because it really reeks of the photo type era.

That would be the era when I bought my first Postscript font. ; )

That one is totally missing what I’m talking about. It’s missing any evidence of a broad-nibbed pen or quill like the earlier examples. You can’t see any evidence of the “pulling” of the nib toward the baseline, and the cross strokes being one straight movement of the pen.

Interestingly, I’ve seen quite a few sans-serif designs that I really love that have this same sort of feeling.

Sry to junk up the thread. I suppose you are looking at the bowl rather than the arm of the letter—as I see from you examples. Maybe I’ll start a love/hate on Garth thread and explore my larval adventures in Postscript.

FB Eldorado

I like that one! That’s EXACTLY the type of cut that I’m talking about.

Mario Feliciano’s Rongel is good. From his website:
¶ FTF Rongel™ is an interpretation of the types of Rongel shown in Muestras de los punzones y matrices de letra que se funde en el obrador de la Imprenta Real, Madrid, 1799.

So school me on calligraphy—could this be produced with a broad-nibbed pen?

I dunno. Minion has the lachrymal thing going on as well. Does anyone know how or where that fits into the evolution of type from the obviously broad-nib formed to what we have now.