Alphabetum Romanum

Last updated
Design for the letter 'D', from Felice Feliciano, Alphabetum Romanum
Codex Vaticanus 6852 Page 42.GIF
Design for the letter 'D', from Felice Feliciano, Alphabetum Romanum Codex Vaticanus 6852

The Alphabetum Romanum, by Felice Feliciano, published in 1463, is a text that covers how to create Roman square capital letters geometrically based on the subdivision of a square.

The codex, probably printed in Verona, is the first humanistic treatise on the construction of Roman capital letters. It contains a complete Roman alphabet, two letters on each sheet, below which the rules for their design are given. The final part includes a recipe for colors. The original is hand-colored with text both in Italian and Latin with an epigram by Paolo Ramusio published in 1463 in Volume Codex Vaticanus Latinus 6852. [1] The original is preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palimpsest</span> Reused manuscript with visible prior text

In textual studies, a palimpsest is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so, in the interest of economy, a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term palimpsest is also used in architecture, archaeology and geomorphology to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another; for example, a monumental brass the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Vaticanus</span> 4th-century Bible manuscript in Greek

The Codex Vaticanus, designated by siglum B or 03, δ 1, is a Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four great uncial codices. Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the 4th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angelo Mai</span>

Angelo Mai was an Italian Cardinal and philologist. He won a European reputation for publishing for the first time a series of previously unknown ancient texts. These he was able to discover and publish, first while in charge of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and then in the same role at the Vatican Library. The texts were often in parchment manuscripts that had been washed off and reused; he was able to read the lower text using chemicals. In particular he was able to locate a substantial portion of the much sought-after De republica of Cicero and the complete works of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vatican Library</span> Library of the Holy See in Vatican City

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, although it is much older—it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. It has 75,000 codices from throughout history, as well as 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vergilius Vaticanus</span>

The Vergilius Vaticanus, also known as Vatican Virgil, is a Late Antique illuminated manuscript containing fragments of Virgil's Aeneid and Georgics. It was made in Rome in around 400 CE, and is one of the oldest surviving sources for the text of the Aeneid. It is the oldest and one of only three ancient illustrated manuscripts of classical literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vergilius Augusteus</span>

The Vergilius Augusteus is a manuscript from late antiquity, containing the works of the Roman author Virgil, written probably around the 4th century. There are two other collections of Virgil manuscripts, the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus. They are early examples of illuminated manuscripts; the Augusteus is not illuminated but has decorated initial letters at the top of each page. These letters do not mark divisions of the text, but rather are used at the beginning of whatever line happened to fall at the top of the page. These decorated initials are the earliest surviving such initials.

<i>On the Soul</i> Treatise by Aristotle

On the Soul is a major treatise written by Aristotle c. 350 BC. His discussion centres on the kinds of souls possessed by different kinds of living things, distinguished by their different operations. Thus plants have the capacity for nourishment and reproduction, the minimum that must be possessed by any kind of living organism. Lower animals have, in addition, the powers of sense-perception and self-motion (action). Humans have all these as well as intellect.

<i>Roman Ritual</i> One of the official ritual works of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church

The Roman Ritual is one of the official liturgical books of the Roman Rite of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. It contains all of the services that a priest or deacon may perform; and are not contained in the Missale Romanum, Pontificale Romanum, or Caeremoniale Episcoporum, but for convenience does include some rituals that one of these books contains.

Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum is the name given to a miscellaneous collection of ecclesiastical formulae used in the Papal chancery until about the 11th century. It fell into disuse through the changed circumstances of the times and was soon forgotten and lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felice Feliciano</span>

Felice Feliciano was a fifteenth-century calligrapher, composer of alchemical sonnets, collector of drawings and expert on Roman antiquity, especially inscriptions on stone.

Codex Vaticanus 2066, designed by 046 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), α 1070 (von Soden), formerly it was known also as Codex Basilianus, previously it was designated by Br or B2. It is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament written on vellum. The manuscript paleographically has been assigned to the 10th century by the INTF, though some palaeographers proposed the 9th century. Scrivener proposed even the 8th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papyrus 72</span> New Testament manuscript

Papyrus 72 is the designation used by textual critics of the New Testament to describe portions of the so-called Bodmer Miscellaneous codex, namely the letters of Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter. These books seem to have been copied by the same scribe, and the handwriting has been paleographically assigned to the 3rd or 4th century.

Codex Vaticanus Graecus 2061, usually known as Uncial 048, α1 (Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript on parchment. It contains some parts of the New Testament, homilies of several authors, and Strabo's Geographica. Formerly it was known also as the Codex Basilianus 100, earlier as Codex Patriniensis 27. It was designated by ב a, p.

<i>Missale Romanum Glagolitice</i> First printed Croatian book from 1483

Missale Romanum Glagolitice is a Croatian missal and incunabulum printed in 1483. It is written in Glagolitic script and is the first printed Croatian book. It is the first missal in Europe not published in Latin script. Its editio princeps, unique in the achieved typographic artistry, was published only 28 years after the Gutenberg bible's 42-lines, bears witness of high cultural attainment and maturity of Croatian Glagolites and Croatian mediaeval literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Marchalianus</span> 6th-century Greek manuscript

Codex Marchalianus designated by siglum Q is a 6th-century Greek manuscript copy of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint. The text was written on vellum in uncial letters. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 6th century. Marginal annotations were later added to the copy of the Scripture text, the early ones being of importance for a study of the history of the Septuagint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great uncial codices</span> Four ancient, handwritten copies of the Bible in Greek

The great uncial codices or four great uncials are the only remaining uncial codices that contain the entire text of the Bible in Greek. They are the Codex Vaticanus in the Vatican Library, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus in the British Library, and the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

The Romain du Roi was a typeface developed in France beginning in 1692. The name refers to Louis XIV who commissioned the design of the new typeface for use by the Royal Print Office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868</span> Medieval manuscript of ancient Roman comedies

The Vatican Terence, or Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868, is a 9th-century illuminated manuscript of the Latin comedies of Publius Terentius Afer, housed in the Vatican Library. According to art-historical analysis the manuscript was copied from a model of the 3rd century. The manuscript is referred to in the apparatus criticus of modern editions as "C".

The Lignages d'Outremer describe the pedigrees of the most important Crusader families.

References

  1. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. "Vat. lat. 6852".
  2. Morison, Stanley (2009). Selected Essays on the History of Letter-forms in Manuscript and Print. Cambridge University Press. p. 163. ISBN   9780521183161.

Further reading