Typophile

Rotunda Find on Google Books

John Savard

Searching Google Books with the intent of finding an example of a rotunda, I came across:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=tXCumMOvWRQC

The typeface in which it was set strongly resembled, at least to me, the rotunda of Peter Schöffer. I Googled the book up by its title, and found it was an important book, and also that he was indeed the publisher of that book's first edition.

However, on the "About this book" page, I found that it was not the first edition. Rather, it was an edition of 1479, printed by no less than... Nicolas Jenson. In his famed rotunda, no doubt.

John Savard

Incidentally, in further searching, I found that a copy of this very edition was sold by Christie's... for a measly $5,300 or thereabouts. About what a nondescript First Folio used to go for decades ago.

And, this time in the Internet Archive, I've found another incunabula by Jenson. However, their site is slow right now, so I don't know whether this is another Rotunda, or an example of his famous Roman, but it is praised as a beautiful book in the comments in any case.

http://www.archive.org/details/augustinidecivitatedei00jensuoft

Ah, it's in Jenson's gothic type - so says a site asking $23,500 for a copy. And, having finished downloading it, it's not even his Rotunda this time.

Improving my search skills, however, I found one book by Jenson in a Roman typeface:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=zweEs0ylCfcC

(Historia Naturalis en Italiano)

and another one by him on Google Books also in his famed Rotunda:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=iIC-DowyTpIC

(Incipiunt Capitula Prime Partis Summe Super Totam Theologiam Fratris Sancti Thome de Aquino)

And, while we're at it, while neither De Aetna nor the Hypnoerotomachia is on Google Books, here is

http://books.google.ca/books?id=nooXntOHyFAC

(De Gradibus Medicinarum)

and

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8_NRSNHl1zMC

(De Morbo Gallico)

And here's a book from 1501 that seems to be in a beautiful Roman face:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=Py48AAAAcAAJ

(Liber de Imaginatione, by Pico della Mirandola)

And a book written by Aldus Manutilus himself, apparently - in his Greek typeface:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=lUI8AAAAcAAJ

John Hudson

Your Google Books searches prompted me to do a couple of my own, looking for works published by Marcolini, whose italic is of interest because Mardersteig reckoned it to have been based on the chancery hand of the calligrapher Francesco Alunno, of whom I am a fan. And from there I discovered that Nicholas Barker is also an Alunno aficionado, and in 2009 produced a major monograph and reproduction of all the known surviving calligraphic works (including the famous collection that was lost for over a hundred years, and then broken up by an auctioneer when it was rediscovered). Hurrah!

The glory of the art of writing. The complete calligraphic work of Francesco Alunno of Ferrara

Clever two-way slipcase too.

So thanks for the diversion!

Captured from web.archive.org on 24 Mar 2015. view this capture