Rustic capitals () is an

ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

calligraphic 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 ...

script. Because the term is negatively connoted supposing an opposition to the more 'civilized' form of the

Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called ''capitalis monumentalis'', inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and ''capitalis quadrata'', are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. Square capitals are characterized ...

, Bernhard Bischoff prefers to call the script ''canonized capitals''. The script was used for writing secular texts. RomanVirgilFolio014rVergilPortrait

History

The script was used between the 1st century and the 9th century, most often between the 4th and 6th centuries. After the 5th century, rustic capitals began to fall out of use, but they continued to be used as a display script in titles and headings, along with

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

as the script of the main text.

Structure

Rustic capitals are similar to

, but are less rigid, influenced more by pen and ink writing on

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...

. The letters are thinner and more compressed, use many more curved lines than do square capitals, and have

descender In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a grapheme that extends below the Baseline (typography), baseline of a typeface, font. For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal li ...

s extending below the baseline.

Syntax

The scripts written in rustic capitals use ''punctus'' marks (dots which are placed between the words) to denote word separation, contrary to the common practice of ''scriptura continua (''the continuous writing of words without any form of separation see

Uncial script Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

Surviving works

About fifty manuscripts with rustic capitals survive, including four copies of works by

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

(including the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus), one copy of a work by

Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six Roman comedy, comedies based on Greek comedy, Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. A ...

, and one of a work by

Prudentius Aurelius Prudentius Clemens () was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.H. J. Rose, ''A Handbook of Classical Literature'' (1967) p. 508 He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula some ...

. The script was usually used for ''de luxe'' copies of pagan authors; the only works by Christian authors which use this script are those by Prudentius and Sedulius.

References

External links

'Manual of Latin Palaeography'
(A comprehensive PDF file containing 82 pages profusely illustrated, 6th edition, January 2024). {{DEFAULTSORT:Rustic Capitals Latin language in ancient Rome Latin-script calligraphy Palaeography Papyrology Writing Medieval scripts Early Middle Ages Western calligraphy