Riccardo Olocco - The success of Jenson’s roman type

Riccardo Olocco presents his research on Nicolas Jenson’s roman type (Venice, 1470), introducing the procedures adopted in his research, based on photographic enlargements and on detailed analysis of printed type. This presentation will explore Jenson’s roman and its high design quality, both in the choice of letterforms and in their execution. This is easy to grasp when compared with other types cut in Venice in those early years. The talk will also discuss the trade of Jenson’s roman, combining bibliographical data with analysis of letterforms. Jenson’s roman is found in books that came from more than 40 printing offices before the end of the 15th century. Finally ----- will discuss the influence of Jenson’s design, how it was taken as a model and copied by many punchcutters over several decades. Some of these imitations are so close to Jenson’s original that differences are almost undetectable with the naked eye. Jenson made an essential contribution to the shape of roman type as we know it and he is one of the most important personalities in the whole history of typography.

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It’s somehow comforting to know that even high-profile conferences like this deal with the same audio issues as everyone else.