Wouldn’t that be like connected st, ct, etc.?

Eben

as far as I can see, Updike relates with those words to the italics (Kanon cursijf and Paragon cursijf) mentioned some lines before – see page 20. If you look at Ill. 201 (between page 14 and 15), you will find a lot of unusual ligatures besides the usual ones (st sp ct ss st etc and so on) and the swashes in the type.

There is a “us” in line 1: Largus, a “as” in proprias, a “ta” in line 2: monimenta, a “at” in line 3: Illustrat, a “is” in line 9: Sudantis, and I’m sure there are a lot more of those ligatures. Although the example is taken from a 1616 imprint, the type was in use at least from 1575 onwards. There are also a lot of swashy alternate capitals in this type.

So I think Updike speaks mostly of those elements.

wolfgang

Part of Updike, Ill. 201

I think you are jumping too far in associating Updike’s ’unusual’ with specifically ’contextual shapes’, enamoured as you are of the latter. Linking obviously refers, as you note, to the various ligated letters: ff us et ta ll st etc. as illustrated in your second post. But note also the scribal abbreviation in ferroque in line eight, which doubtless Updike would have classified with ’unusual’, along with swash forms, and perhaps even the long s. Unusual means ’unusual to Updike’s time and taste’, of course, not unusual to the makers or users of the original type.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/data/indiv/rare/type-exhibit/2rvi/arrigh...

Note also the Greek letters, for spelling reform.
All very experimental.

There was a lot of interest in italics during the 16th century, whole books were printed in them.
But eventually it transpired that mixing roman and italic was a more useful complexity than trying to parse the effect of calligraphy.
But as long as typefounders were wrapping their heads around such complexity, perhaps some of the contextuality rubbed off on their treatment of roman? Keep looking...

That title page is engraved.

Re-reading I see that you must be correct Wolfgang! Probably the excitement of the funny shapes in the Van de Keere/Plantin Roman got the better of me. I must learn to write after I have had enough sleep.

The italics are really fun. I have not spent nearly enough time looking at italics. I have been seeing a lot of connected/ligatured italics this week in the MATD Reading collections.