- Top to bottom: Caslon, Bodoni, Scotch Modern
There are two main characteristics of this late modern style:
Firstly, the g and y follow the model of connected writing, with a monocular g, and y with parallel sides.
Secondly, the ‘entry’ stroke of all characters is hooked, a rotation of the ‘exit’ stroke.
There is a specimen by P. Didot of 1819, shown in Updike, which has all these characteristics.
It seems likely that the style emerged piecemeal, as there are varying degrees of implementation of the letter forms in early 19th century italics, with the serifs gradually growing longer.
While the form of g and y may be attributed to emulation of scripts, the universality of the entry hooks goes against the “joining principle” of scripts.
Another possible factor leading to the style may have been the difficulty of making old-style g and y in the new fat face genre.
Something else apparent in specimens of the era: roman and italic have almost identical word counts. Perhaps this is another aspect of the style, although it’s hard to tell from subsequent revivals, where the metrics may have been significantly altered from the original.
As far as I am aware, there is not much written about the history of the italic, compared with the roman—what are the standard works? Does my assessment seem reasonable? Comments welcome.
