Editing Palaeography (section)

== Rise of modern writing ==
[[File:HS 140 38 object 210168 - Frontispice of the Towns Register, the so called 'Stadtbuch', of Bozen-Bolzano (South Tyrol) from 1472.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Book frontispiece|Frontispiece]], handwritten in [[Early New High German]], of the so-called ''Stadtbuch'' from [[Bolzano]], dated 1472<ref>{{Citation | last = Obermair | first = Hannes | author-link = Hannes Obermair | contribution = Das Bozner Stadtbuch: Handschrift 140 – das Amts- und Privilegienbuch der Stadt Bozen | editor = Stadtarchiv Bozen | title = Bozen: von den Grafen von Tirol bis zu den Habsburgern | series = Forschungen zur Bozner Stadtgeschichte | volume = 1 | pages = 399–432 | publisher = Verlagsanstalt Athesia | place = Bozen-Bolzano | year = 1999 | isbn =88-7014-986-2 | contribution-url = https://www.academia.edu/1282360/Das_Bozner_Stadtbuch_Handschrift_140_das_Amts-_und_Privilegienbuch_der_Stadt_Bozen }}</ref>]]

These humanistic scripts are the base for the [[Antiqua (typeface class)|antiqua]] and the handwriting forms in western and southern Europe. In [[Germany]] and [[Austria]], the ''[[Kurrentschrift]]'' was rooted in the [[cursive]] handwriting of the later [[Middle Ages]]. With the name of the [[calligrapher]] Ludwig [[Sütterlin]], this handwriting counterpart to the [[blackletter]] [[typeface]]s was abolished by [[Hitler]] in 1941. After [[World War II]], it was taught as an alternative script in some areas until the 1970s; it is no longer taught. [[Secretary hand]] is an informal business hand of the Renaissance.

=== Developments ===
[[File:Niccolo de Niccoli italic handwriting.jpg|thumb|Handwriting by [[Niccolò de' Niccoli]] (1364–1437), which served as the origin of [[italic type]]]]

There are undeniable points of contact between [[History of architecture|architecture]] and palaeography, and in both it is possible to distinguish a [[Romanesque architecture|Romanesque]] and a [[Gothic architecture|Gothic]] period {{citation needed|date=December 2014}}. The creative effort which began in the post-Carolingian period culminated at the beginning of the 12th century in a [[calligraphy]] and an architecture which, though still somewhat awkward, showed unmistakable signs of power and experience, and at the end of that century and in the first half of the 13th both arts reached their climax and made their boldest flights.

The topography of later medieval writing is still being studied; national varieties can, of course, be identified but the problem of distinguishing features becomes complicated as a result of the development of international relations, and the migration of clerks from one end of Europe to the other. During the later centuries of the [[Middle Ages]] the Gothic minuscule continued to improve within the restricted circle of ''de luxe'' editions and ceremonial documents. In common use, it degenerated into a cursive which became more and more intricate, full of superfluous strokes and complicated by abbreviations.

In the first quarter of the 15th century an innovation took place which exercised a decisive influence on the evolution of writing in Europe. The Italian [[humanism|humanists]] were struck by the eminent legibility of the manuscripts, written in the improved Carolingian minuscule of the 10th and 11th centuries, in which they discovered the works of ancient authors, and carefully imitated the old writing. In [[Petrarch]]'s compact book hand, the wider leading and reduced compression and round curves are early manifestations of the reaction against the crabbed Gothic secretarial minuscule we know today as "[[Blackletter#Gothic minuscule|blackletter]]".

Petrarch was one of the few medieval authors to have written at any length on the handwriting of his time; in his essay on the subject, ''La scrittura''<ref>Petrarch, ''La scrittura'', discussed by Armando Petrucci, ''La scrittura di Francesco Petrarca'' (Vatican City) 1967.</ref> he criticized the current scholastic hand, with its laboured strokes (''artificiosis litterarum tractibus'') and exuberant (''luxurians'') letter-forms amusing the eye from a distance, but fatiguing on closer exposure, as if written for other purpose than to be read. For Petrarch the gothic hand violated three principles: writing, he said, should be simple (''castigata''), clear (''clara'') and orthographically correct.<ref>Petrarch, ''La scrittura'', noted in Albert Derolez, "The script reform of Petrarch: an illusion?" in John Haines, Randall Rosenfeld, eds. ''Music and Medieval Manuscripts: paleography and performance'' 2006:5f; Derolez discusses the ''degree'' of Petrarch's often alluded-to reform.</ref> [[Boccaccio]] was a great admirer of Petrarch; from Boccaccio's immediate circle this post-Petrarchan "semi-gothic" revised hand spread to ''literati'' in [[Florence]], [[Lombardy]]<ref>{{cite book |first=Mirella |last=Ferrari |chapter=La 'littera antiqua' a Milan, 1417–1439 |editor-first=Johannes |editor-last=Autenrieth |title=Renaissance- und Humanistenhandschriften |location=Munich |publisher=Oldenbourg |year=1988 |pages=21–29 |isbn=3-486-54511-6 }}</ref> and the [[Veneto]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Rhiannon |last=Daniels |title=Boccaccio and the book: production and reading in Italy 1340–1520 |year=2009 |location=London |publisher=Legenda |page=28 |isbn=978-1-906540-49-4 }}</ref>

A more thorough reform of handwriting than the Petrarchan compromise was in the offing. The generator of the new style (''illustration'') was [[Poggio Bracciolini]], a tireless pursuer of ancient manuscripts, who developed the new [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] script in the first decade of the 15th century. The Florentine bookseller [[Vespasiano da Bisticci]] recalled later in the century that Poggio had been a very fine [[calligraphy|calligrapher]] of ''lettera antica'' and had transcribed texts to support himself—presumably, as Martin Davies points out—<ref>Davies, in Kraye (ed.) 1996:51.</ref> before he went to Rome in 1403 to begin his career in the [[papal curia]]. [[Berthold Ullman]] identifies the watershed moment in the development of the new humanistic hand as the youthful Poggio's transcription of [[Cicero]]'s ''[[Epistulae ad Atticum|Epistles to Atticus]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ullman |first=B. L. |title=The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script |location=Rome |year=1960 }}</ref>

By the time the [[Medici]] library was catalogued in 1418, almost half the manuscripts were noted as in the ''lettera antica''. The new script was embraced and developed by the Florentine humanists and educators [[Niccolò de' Niccoli]]<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Stanley Morison |first=Stanley |last=Morison |chapter=Early humanistic script and the first roman type |title=Selected Essays on the History of Letter-Forms in Manuscript and Print |editor-first=David |editor-last=McKitterick |volume=2 vols. |year=1981 |location=London |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=206–29 |isbn=0-521-22338-5 }}</ref> and [[Coluccio Salutati]]. The [[papal chancery]] adopted the new fashion for some purposes, and thus contributed to its diffusion throughout [[Christendom]]. The printers played a still more significant part in establishing this form of writing by using it, from the year 1465, as the basis for their types.

The humanistic minuscule soon gave rise to a sloping cursive hand, known as the Italian, which was also taken up by printers in search of novelty and thus became the [[italic type]]. In consequence, the [[Italic script|Italian hand]] became widely used, and in the 16th century began to compete with the Gothic cursive. In the 17th century, writing masters were divided between the two schools, and there was in addition a whole series of compromises. The Gothic characters gradually disappeared, except a few that survived in Germany. The Italian became universally used, brought to perfection in more recent times by English calligraphers.<ref name="Bouar" />