200px, Civilité types used in a French courtesy book (1785) Civilité type (french: Caractères de civilité) is a

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

introduced in 1557 by the French

punchcutter Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould ...

Robert Granjon Robert Granjon (1513-November 16, 1589/March 1590) was a French type designer and printer. He worked in Paris, Lyon, Frankfurt, Antwerp, and Rome for various printers. He is best known for having introduced the typeface Civilité and for his itali ...

. These characters imitate French cursiva letters of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

, specifically a formal style of secretary hand.

History

The first book in the new type was ''Dialogue de la vie et de la mort'', a French version of Innocenzo Ringhieri's dialogue, in the dedication of which Granjon explains his purpose in cutting the new design. He calls the typeface "lettres françaises" and suggests that France like other nations should have a type based on the national hand; his model was contemporary handwriting. The popular name for the type came from the titles of two early books in which it was used: Erasmus's ''La Civilité puerile'', Jean Bellère, Antwerp, 1559, and ''La Civile honesteté pour les enfans'', R. Breton, Paris, 1560. "Civilité" meant "good manners" and it was thought an advantage that children should learn to read from a book printed in a type resembling current handwriting. Between 1557 and 1562 Granjon printed some 20 books in this type. Two other Paris printers had typefaces made that were very similar and Granjon himself supplied his version to Guillaume Silvius and to Christophe Plantin at Antwerp. Philippe Danfrie was another early creator of civilité types. They were mostly employed to print books in

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former Provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. In the latter, they were used until the second half of the 19th century to print children's lesson-books teaching civility and manners from which the type got its name. Civilité type did not win great popularity in France although used occasionally at all periods. Another version of civilité were used in one book printed in 1597 by Claude Micard, and two others in two books printed by

Jean de Tournes Jean de Tournes (1504 – 1564) was a French printer, book publisher and bookseller, and the founder of a long-lasting family printing business. From 1559 he was the , printer to the French king. Life Jean de Tournes was born in Lyon in ...

in 1581 and 1598. In the mid 19th century Louis Perrin of Lyons printed J. Soulary's ''Sonnets humouristiques'' in civilité. Granjon's experiment cannot be said to have been a success: one of the grave disadvantages was that many ligatures were required and some letters had more than one variant.

References

* Rémi Jimenes, ''Les Caractères de civilité. Typographie et calligraphie sous l'Ancien Régime'', Gap, Atelier Perrousseaux, 2011. * Harry Carter &

Hendrik Vervliet Hendrik Désiré Louis 'Dis' Vervliet (Antwerp, 31 December 1923 – August 2020) was a Belgian librarian and historian of books and printing. Life Vervliet was born into a working-class family and received a doctorate in classical philolog ...

, ''Civilité types'', Oxford, University Press, 1966.

History

References

Further reading