Transatlantic eccentricities: tuscan typefaces as an example of transnational typographic taste

Research was conducted at the University of São Paulo and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

Based on evidence found in commercial almanacs published in Brazil in the nineteenth century, we propose a reflection on the use and circulation of ornamented letterforms between Northern and Southern hemispheres, most specifically between Europe, North and South America. The focus is on the so-called ‘tuscan’ typefaces, a popular form characterized by its curled and branching serifs and exuberant ornaments.

Keywords:

• Typography
• design history
• nineteenth century
• transnational letterforms

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the undergraduate research students Marina Onoda, Marcela de Figueiredo, Ana Luisa Figueredo, Carlos A. Cidrini and Heloisa Barbosa, and the permission given by Biblioteca Nacional and Biblioteca Maria de Andrade to photograph items of their archives reproduced here.

Notes

Research was conducted at the University of São Paulo and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1. Culture and taste should be here understood in the sense proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, in particular, in his La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement, published in 1979. It is also coherent with the use of taste in the description or analysis of preferences in type design and typography (see, for instance, Dixon, A Description Framework for Typeforms, G45–G49; Baines and Haslam, Type and Typography, 58–59; Middendorp, Dutch Type, 18).

2. Rickards and Twyman, The Encyclopedia of Ephemera, 15.

3. Farias, “On Graphic Memory”.

4. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types, 7.

5. Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, 130–131.

6. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types, 9.

7. This almanac was published until 1950, but only the nineteenth-century issues were considered in the research reported here.

8. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types, 157–158.

9. Ibid., 157–162.

10. Ibid., 160.

11. Dixon, A Description Framework for Typeforms, G51.

12. See, for instance, Jong, Purvis, and Tholenaar, Type, 85–86, 88, and 98.

13. Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection <http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/rrk/>.

14. Sauer, Almanak Administrativo, Mercantil e Industrial.

15. Seckler, Almanach da Provincia de São Paulo.

16. Seckler, Almanach do Estado de São Paulo para 1890.

17. Seckler, Almanach do Estado de São Paulo para 1891.

18. Earlier studies on tuscan typefaces used in Almanak Laemmert can be found in Figueiredo and Cunha Lima, “O uso da tipografia toscana”, and in Cunha Lima, Figueiredo and Cidrini, “Fontes toscanas no Almanak Laemmert”; while studies on tuscan typefaces used in Jorge Seckler’s almanacs in Farias and Onoda, “Letras toscanas no repertório tipográfico de Jorge Seckler”.

19. Farias, Aragão and Cunha Lima, “Unraveling Aspects of Brazilian Design History”.

20. Cunha Lima, Fundidoras de tipo do Século XIX.

21. Annenberg, Type Foundries of America; Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types; Johnston, Alphabets to Order; and Jong, Purvis, and Tholenaar, Type.

22. Biblioteca Nacional – Hemeroteca digital brasileira <http://memoria.bn.br>.

23. The pages of Almanak Laemmert available in Biblioteca Nacional website are made from the digitalization of microfilms, and are provided as 300 dpi, greyscale, Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) files.

24. Biblioteca Brasiliana Guita e José Mindlin Digital <http://www.brasiliana.usp.br/bbd>.

25. Documents in the Brasiliana library website are available in secured PDF files, with images in medium resolution, but higher resolution TIFF files (300 dpi, greyscale) are available upon request. High-resolution images of selected pages of Seckler’s almanac for 1888 were requested and obtained. Selected pages of the other almanacs by Seckler were photographed in raw format with a DSLR camera and a tripod, and later converted to 300 dpi greyscale images.

26. Annenberg, Type Foundries of America; Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types; Johnston, Alphabets to Order; and Jong, Purvis, and Tholenaar, Type.

27. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types.

28. Ibid., 213.

29. Johnston, Alphabets to order, 44.

30. Jong, Purvis, and Tholenaar, Type, 138.

31. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types, 211–213.

32. Ibid., 79, 216, and 219.

33. Ibid., 79.

34. Ibid., 216.

35. Ibid., 219.

36. Ibid., 218.

37. Jong, Purvis, and Tholenaar, Type, 177.

38. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types.

39. Such as Annenberg, Type Foundries of America; Johnston, Alphabets to Order; and Jong, Purvis, and Tholenaar, Type.

40. Gray, Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types, 99–226.