Felice Feliciano (
Verona
Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...
1433 -
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
1479) was a fifteenth-century
calligrapher
Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...
, composer of
alchemical
Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...
sonnets
A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...
, collector of drawings and expert on Roman antiquity, especially inscriptions on stone.
Biography
He lived just long enough to see printing arrive in Italy. He was the first to recreate geometrically the alphabet of
Roman inscriptions, in 1463. The original copy of ''
Alphabetum Romanum'', his treatise on the geometrical construction of Roman capital letters using the square and circle, is preserved in the
Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...
(
Codex Vat. lat. 6852). In 1470 while in
Bologna
Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
as ''Vicario di Castel San Giorgio'', he became acquainted with
Sabadino degli Arienti
Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti (Bologna 1445 – Bologna 1510) was an Italian humanist, author, poet and prose writer.
Born in Bologna, he first served as a secretary for Count Andrea Bentivoglio, and then from 1491 was the client of Ercole ...
, who mentioned him in his III and IV ''
Porretane''. He started printing in 1476 in Poiano, near
Verona
Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...
. In 1478, he travelled to Rome, visiting his friend
Francesco Porcari.
Felix Titling font
Monotype
Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
's Felix Titling (1934) is based on a 1463 alphabet of Feliciano.
Works
*''
Alphabetum Romanum'' (1463)
''Poems and epistles : with novellas by other authors''(1471–1472)
Further reading
* Jason Dewinetz, ''Alphabetum Romanum: The Letterforms of Felice Feliciano c. 1460, Verona'' (2010.
Greenboathouse Press, Vernon BC)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feliciano, Felice
Italian calligraphers
1433 births
1479 deaths