Lettering in Fifteenth Century Florentine Painting

Author(s): Dario A. Covi

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Mar., 1963), pp. 1-17
Published by: College Art Association
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LETTERING IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY

FLORENTINE PAINTING
DARIOA. COVI
HISpaperattemptsto deal with lettering as art history.'With a few-both understandable
and significant-exceptions,it focusesupon the letter forms employedby fifteenth century
Florentine paintersin their paintings.Its point of departureis the well-known fact that
the
fifteenth centurythe Gothic style of lettering of the late Middle Ages was gradually
during
made to yield to two other styles of lettering, romancapitalsand a new scriptcalled humanistica.
So familiarindeed is the story of this changethat in the general surveysof Latin palaeography
the historyof fifteenthcenturyletter forms has receivedbut cursoryattention.2It has been left to
more specialized studies, like the articles by A. Hessel on the origin of Renaissancewriting,'
J. P. Elder on the early development of humanisticscript,'and S. Morison on the relation of
Renaissancetype design to Roman letter forms,' to reveal its complexityand its many subtleties.
Meanwhileother aspectsof Renaissancelettering have come under scrutinyin other quarters,and
the recent researchesof Millard Meiss and GiovanniMardersteighave shed much new light on
the subjectof Renaissanceepigraphyand the Renaissancetheory of lettering."Thus the historical
image of Renaissancelettering which now emerges is neither so simple nor so completeas it once
seemed, but more precise and comprehensivethan at any time since the study of letter forms
began to engage the attentionof scholars.
Needless to say, that image does not include, save fleetingly, the lettering of inscriptionsin
Renaissancepainting. To be sure, the broaderreforms are sufficientlyfamiliar to all, and have
occasionallybeen pointedout. As early as 1785 Luigi Lanzi observedthat Gothicletters beganto be
T

x. This article is a revision of a portion of my dissertation,

The Inscription in Fifteenth Century Florentine Painting (hereinafter referred to as Covi, Dissertation), presented in 1958 at
the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. The contents were first outlined in a paper read at the 42nd Annual
Meeting of the College Art Association of America in 1954,
a pr6cis of which was published in Renaissance News, vii,
and was more fully developed in talks which
x954, PP. 46-50,
I was privileged to give the Graduate Students Club at the
Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art at Smith
College.
For helpful criticism I owe thanks to Drs. Gertrud Bing,
William S. Heckscher, and Richard Offner, and to my wife,
who in addition assisted with an uncommonly good mixture of
patience and intellectual prodding; and I am pleased to acknowledge the benefit I derived from several discussions which
I had about Renaissance epigraphy with Dr. Millard Meiss.
I wish also to thank Dr. Hellmut Wohl for lending the photograph reproduced in Fig. 40, Professor Robert J. Doherty,
Jr. for technical advice and help on the photograph reproduced in Fig. 6; and Professor Charles Sterling for securing the
photograph reproduced in Fig. 8. I am grateful, finally, to the
State University of Iowa and the University of Louisville for
grants to purchase photographs and to the latter also for a grant
to facilitate research.
2. See, e.g., F. Steffens, Lateinische Palidographie, 2nd ed.,
Trier, 19o9, pp. xxiii-xxvi; B. L. Ullman, Ancient Writing
and its Influence, London, x932, pp. 137-1445 L. Schiaparelli,
"Paleografia," in Enciclopedia italiana, Rome, I935, XXVI,
pp. 45-46. (B. L. Ullman's The Origin and Development of
Humanistic Script, Rome, I96o, came to my attention too late
for me to draw upon it for this article.)

3. A. Hessel, "Die Entstehung der Renaissanceschriften,"

Archiv filr Urkundenforschung, xIII, 1933, pp. 1-14 (hereinafter referred to as Hessel). See also D. Thomas, "What is the
origin of the Scrittura Umanistica?" La bibliofilia, xIII,
195x, pp. 1x-o.
4. J. P. Elder, "Clues for Dating Florentine Humanistic
Manuscripts," Studies in Philology, XLIV, x947, pp. 127-139
(hereinafter referred to as Elder, "Clues").
5. S. Morison, "Early Humanistic Script and the First Roman Type," The Library, xxiv, 1943, pp. x-29 (hereinafter
referred to as Morison, "Early Humanistic Script"), which
is of fundamental importance. Other important contributions
by Morison will be cited below.
6. M. Meiss, Andrea Mantegna as Illuminator, New York,
1957, chapters iii and iv (hereinafter referred to as Meiss,
Andrea Mantegna), and "Toward a More Comprehensive
Renaissance

Palaeography,"

ART BULLETIN,

XLII, 196o,

pp.

97- 12 (hereinafter referred to as Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography"); G. Mardersteig, "Leon Battista Alberti e la rinascita del carattere lapidario romano nel quattrocento," Italia
medioevale e umanistica, 11, 1959, pp. 285-307 (hereinafter
referred to as "Mardersteig"), kindly called to my attention
by Professor Charles Mitchell. In the same article Mardersteig
referred to an unpublished paper by Augusto Campana, "Studi
epigrafici ed epigrafia letteraria nell'umanesimo italiano," which
was read at the Convegno Internazionale di Studi sull'Umanesimo, at La Mendola, Italy, in 1957, but this paper has not
been available to me.
A brief statement on the Renaissance theory of lettering may
also be found in the Introduction to N. Gray's Lettering on
Buildings, New York, 1960.

THE

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used in inscriptionsin Italian paintingafter I2oo and continuedin use until the middle of the
fifteenth century,when the Roman charactersof lettering were revived.' And later students of
Italian paintinghave made similar or related observations.8But these remarkshardly penetrate
the surfaceof the problemof lettering in painting.We have to realize that the basicdevelopments
in lettering occurredin two fundamentallydifferenttechniquesof letter making,neither of which
is that of the painter:I) writingletters with a quill or pen on parchment,which is the techniqueof
the scrivenerand is the branchof lettering ordinarilyof concernin the study of palaeography;
2) carving or engraving letters in stone or other hard materials,which is the techniqueof the
epigrapherand the sculptor,and is the branchof lettering ordinarilyof concernin the study of
epigraphy. While some paintersmay have practicedor had experiencewith either or both of
these techniques,they could not employ them in their paintings.It may be assumedthat painters
imitatedthe letter forms which were invented or evolved either in manuscriptwriting or in epigraphy,or in both.To undertakea study of lettering in paintingwe should have to determinewhich
models, manuscriptor epigraphic,painterspreferred,and how well they assimilatedthem.
As might be expected, in fifteenth century Florence both the new humanisticscript and the
restoredroman capitalsbegan to assert themselves in painting. At the same time, Quattrocento
paintersdid not reject the older, Gothic letter forms. This leads to interestingquestionsof the
relationshipof styles of lettering to form and iconography.In this paper I should like to consider
suchquestionsas well. I shall first sketchin outline how the new humanisticscriptand the roman
capitalsof manuscriptwriting and epigraphy influencedthe letter forms which we find in the
inscriptionsof fifteenthcenturyFlorentinepaintings.SecondI shall try to indicatehow both the
new and the older styles of lettering were made to serve the formal and iconographicrequirements of the Quattrocento.
I

The Gothicstyle of lettering that prevailedin Italy as in Northern Europe before the Renaissance was a minusculebookhand (Fig. I), which was derived by a process of stylization and
elaborationfrom the Caroline script (Fig. 3),~ the first minuscule bookhand to gain almost
universal recognitionin the West.'" Although when comparedwith Northern Gothic (Fig. 4),
Italian Gothic scriptis neither so slender in its proportionsnor so angular, does not have spikey
projections,and appearsgenerallyless crowded,it shareswith the formerthe use of many abbreviations, ligaturesand hairlineflourishes(or appendages)and such peculiaritiesof form as the D
with the ascenderstrongly bent towardthe left, a 2-shaped R following letters that terminatein
a bowedstroke,and a majusculeS at the end as well as in the body of words."
Italian paintersof the fourteenthand fifteenth centuriessometimesemployed such minuscules
in theirinscriptions,as may be seen in the Pisanaltarpieceof St. ThomasAquinasin SantaCaterina,
Pisa (Fig. 2), or the inscriptionof St. John the Baptistin Piero della Francesca'spolyptychof the
Misericordiain the Town Hall of Borgo Sansepolcro.'2On the whole, however, Italian Gothic
paintersand sculptorspreferredmajusculeforms, and the letters which they adoptedwere culled
from two differentmajuscularalphabetstransmittedthrough the same Carolingiansourcesfrom
which the Gothic scriptwas evolved. For Carolingianscribeswere wont to employ in titles and
subtitlesthe romancapitalsof classicalepigraphyand their immediateoffspring,the uncials (Fig.
7. L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica dell'Italia, Bassano, 1795-96,
I, p. 34.
8. See, for instance, A. Schmarsow, "Domenico Veneziano,"
L'arte, xv,

1912,

p. 10o.

9. E. A. Lowe, "Handwriting," in The Legacy of the

Middle Ages, ed. C. G. Crump and E. F. Jacob, Oxford, 1926,
pp. 222-224.

So. Ibid., pp. 218-219; Steffens, Lateinische Paliiographie,

p. xvi.
ii. Cf. Lowe, op.cit., p. 224.
12. R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools
of Painting, The Hague, 1924-1938, XI, fig. Io (hereinafter
referred to as van Marle) ; detail in Sir Kenneth Clark, Piero
della Francesca, London, 195 , pl. 8.

LETTERING

IN FIFTEENTH

CENTURY

FLORENTINE

PAINTING

3). * From these, Gothicscribesin turn workedup their large initial letters. But instead of maintaining a distinctionbetween the roman capital and the uncial alphabets, as their Carolingian
predecessorshad done, they mixed them together, added an enlarged minusculeN, and produced
a uniquealphabetwhich, for want of a bettername, may be called the Gothicmajusculealphabet."'
It was these so-calledGothicmajusculesthat were especiallyfavored by Italian artistsfor inscriptions in architecture,sculpture,and painting during the fourteenth (Fig. 5) and early fifteenth
centuries(Fig. 9).0"
II
of the Renaissancecameaboutthrougha simplificationof the Gothic
Now, the new
humanistica
scriptunder the directinfluenceof the Carolinehand--in short, a reversalof the processthat had
led to Gothicminuscules.'"Even the relativelyclear,well-spaced,roundItalianGothicletters were
unacceptableto the Italian humanistsof the fourteenthcentury.Petrarch,for one, complainedthat
Gothicscriptwas "vaga ... ac luxurians. . . quasiad aliud quamad legendum sit inventa."''And
he simplifiedhis own in orderto makeit more legible.'" It was not long afterwardthat the decisive
step toward the formationof a new scriptwas taken. The humanistsof the late fourteenth and
early fifteenth centuries, particularly Coluccio Salutati (1330-I4o6), Niccol6 Niccoli (1363-1437),
and Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), searching the monastic libraries of Europe for classical texts,

discoveredthem in Carolingianmanuscripts,which in good faith they mistookfor genuine antique

products."Under the spell of this belief they regarded the clear, legible Carolinescript as the
While the work of copyingthose texts
litteraantiquaand imitatedit as they copiedout the texts."20
was well underway in the fourteenthcentury,it was not until the fifteenth that the actualchange
from Gothic to humanisticawas accomplished.By general consent,the first known datable manuscriptwritten more or less entirely in a humanistichand is Poggio Bracciolini'scopy of Cicero's
Epistola ad A tticum, of 1408, formerly in the Staatsbibliothekin Berlin (Fig. 6).21 Bracciolini's
13. Uncials, a modified version of capitals, came into use
in manuscript writing during the fourth century, and are
characterized by such structural changes as the lengthening
of the vertical shaft of the F and the L and the rounding of
letters like the E and the M (cf. Facsimiles of Manuscripts
and Inscriptions, ed. E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson, London, 1873-x883,
I, p. vii; Steffens, Lateinische Paliiographie,
p. iv). For earlier instances of the rounded E, see R. Cagnat,
Cours d'ipigraphie latine, 4th ed., Paris, 1914, p. 14.
14. In general, the letter forms adopted in mediaeval
epigraphy were influenced by manuscript writing (cf. E. Le
Blant, "Paleographie des inscriptions latines du Ille siicle a
la fin du VIIe," Revue archbologique, s. 3, xXIX, 1896, p.
183, and especially P. Deschamps, Atudes sur la paleographie
des inscriptions lapidaires de la fin de l'poque merovingienne
aux dernieres annies du Xlle siecle, Paris, 1929, Pp. 9, 26,
33, 46-47, 52-53; also A. Kingsley Porter, "Leonesque Romanesque and Southern France," ART BULLETIN, VIII, 1926, pp.
243-244, R. W. Lloyd, "Cluny Epigraphy," Speculum, vii,
1932, P. 337, and N. Gray, "The Palaeography of Latin Inscriptions in the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Centuries in Italy,"
Papers of the British School at Rome, xvI [N.S. III], 1948,
p. 124, and passim).
15. It is, of course, incorrect to refer to majuscule letter
forms as Gothic. But because of the absence of any acceptable
term for the particular combination of capitals, uncials and
enlarged minuscule N that is characteristic of this alphabet, I
have adopted the phrase "so-called Gothic majuscules" as
indicative at least of the period when they flourished.
16. Hessel, pp. 1-14; Elder, "Clues," pp. 127-128; Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 7. See also E. P. Goldschmidt, The Printed Book of the Renaissance, Cambridge,
Mass., 1950, p. 2.

17. Hessel, pp. 5-6: "Vaga . . . ac luxurians littera, qualis

est scriptorum seu verius pictorum nostri temporis, longe oculos
mulcens prope autem afficiens ac fatigans, quasi ad aliud quam
ad legendum sit inventa." C. Wehmer, Die Namen der gotischen Buchschriften, Inaugural Dissertation, Berlin, 1932, p.
3, also quotes a portion of the passage.
18. See Petrarch's manuscript of De Sui Ipsius et Multorum
Ignorantia of 1370, Ms Vat. 3359, Biblioteca Vaticana (F.
Ehrle and P. Liebaert, Specimina Codicum Latinorum Vaticanorum, Bonn, 1912, p. xxxiii, pl. 45; Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 3, fig. 2).
19. Ullman, Ancient Writing, p. 14'5 Morison, "Early
Humanistic Script," pp. 7, 14-15, 24-255 Elder, "Clues," pp.
127-128, and "Early Type-Faces," Archaeology, III, 1950,
p. 146 (hereinafter referred to as Elder, "Early Type-Faces").
For the humanists' passion for ferreting out the classics preserved in mediaeval libraries, see A. C. Clark, "The Reappearance of the Texts of the Classics," The Library, 11, 1922,
pp. 13-42.
20. Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 25. See also
D. Fava, "La mostra di codici autografi in onore di Girolamo
Tiraboschi," Accademie e biblioteche d'ltalia, vI, 1932, pp.
11O-III.

21. Ham. 1665 now Westdeutsche Bibliothek, Marburg. Cf.

Ullman, Ancient Writing, pp. x4o, 229 n. 28; Hessel, p. 9;
H. Foerster, Abriss der lateinischen Paldographie, Bern, 1949,
p. 188. See also Poggio Bracciolini's manuscript of Eusebius'
Chronica, Plut. 67, 15, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence (Fava, op.cit., pp. xxo-ix , fig. 9). Poggio's Cicero, Epistola
ad Atticum is first in order in Thomas' chronological listing
of humanistic manuscripts (cf. Thomas, "What is the origin
of the Scrittura Umanistica?", p. 4).

THE

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minusculesare somewhatheavy and bear an affinityto Gothic script; and the capitals which he
employedfor the headingsand the colophonhave thickerstrokesthan the capitalsof the standard
humanistichandevolved by the professionalscrivenersa few yearslater. Of the work of the latter,
a characteristic
example is the LaurentianLibrary'sC. Valerius Flaccus, writtenin 1429 by Antonio
di Mario (Fig.
7)Y22
A ratherconsiderableperiod of time elapsedbefore the new humanisticscriptwas taken up in
pictureinscriptions.To my knowledge, the earliest Florentine paintingwith an inscriptionthat is
unquestionablyinfluencedby the humanistichand is Fra Angelico'saltarpieceof The Coronation
of the Virgin in the Louvre, which was probably completed about 143727.8Written in gold, the

inscriptionis on an open book displayedby St. Dominic and containsa passage from the saint's
spiritualtestamentand excerptsfrom varioushymns (Fig. 8).2' The inscriptionis still Gothic in
appearance.It has many abbreviationsand ligatures,and some of the letters, notably the D with
its ascendercurved toward the left, are in the Gothic tradition.The influenceof the humanistic
handis confinedto a simplificationof the shapesand to the use of the upright or f-shaped S at the
end of words.25
That Fra Angelicowas not fully awareof the fundamentalsof the humanistichand, or was not
interestedin reproducingit as a style distinctfrom Gothic, is attestedby anotherbook inscription,
TESTIFICOR
DEO . . . , on a book held by St. Dominic in the Perugia polyptych of 1437
CORAM

or 1438 (Fig. 9).26 Here, too, the lettering has ratherthe characterof a simplifiedGothic; and in
the terminalS's Fra Angelicovacillatesbetweenthe verticalform used in humanisticmanuscripts27
andthe majuscularform thatwasthe rule in Gothic.28Nor does the following generationof painters
evince a closer familiaritywith the humanistichand practicedby the scribes.Before about 1480
only a few inscriptionsbesidesthe two by Fra Angelico just mentionedshow the influenceof the
humanistichand. Found chieflyin the work of Benozzo Gozzoli, they are still comprisedlargely
of simplifiedGothic forms, as may be seen in the alphabeton the tablet in the San Gimignano
fresco of St. Augustine as a Boy Introduced to the School Master at Carthage.29While the number

of inscriptionswrittenin the humanistichand appearsgreaterin the last two decadesof the century,
many of these inscriptions,like the earlierones by Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli, only create
the impressionof being humanisticbecauseof the simplifiedforms and the ample spacing.If they
are examinedclosely,they areoften foundto consistchieflyof Gothicor semi-humanisticminuscules.
Thus, in the book inscriptionof St. Thomas Aquinasin Domenico Ghirlandaio'saltarpieceof The
Madonna and Saints of about 1483 in the Uffizi (Fig. I I),"s the initials of the verses are frankly

Gothic,the terminalS's are majuscule,and the ascenderof the D is strongly bent towardthe left
in the mannerof Gothicor early humanisticscript.The inscriptionretainsGothic featuresthat had
22. Ms 39, 35. For other manuscripts written by Antonio
di Mario, see Elder, "Clues," pp. 136-138, and N. Barone,
"Notizia della scrittura umanistica nei manoscritti e nei documenti napoletani del XVo secolo," Atti della Reale Accademia
di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, Naples, 1899, xx, ii,
Memoria, no. 2, p. 3.
23. Although sometimes considered earlier, a date in the
1430's agrees with its style. J. Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico,
London, 1952, pp. io, 173, regards the altarpiece as a work
of the 1430's which Fra Angelico abandoned in 1438 and
Domenico Veneziano completed. Cf. also C. G6mez-Moreno,
"A Reconstructed Panel by Fra Angelico and Some New Evidence

for

the

Chronology

of

his

Work,"

ART BULLETIN,

XXXIX,1957, p. 189.
24. For the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 6ia, ii.
25. The terminal S in Gothic always remained majuscular.
For the greater preference shown the upright, or f-shaped, S
at the end of words in humanistic manuscripts, see Elder,
"Clues," pp. 130o, 1335 cf. also Hessel, p. 9, and Foerster,
op.cit., p. 88 (apparently paraphrasing Hessel).

26. Quoted, with slight variation, from II Timothy

4:1-13.
For the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 389.
27. See the words HVS and LVCAS in lines 8 and 15-16 on
the right half of the book.
28. See the words DEMAS and DILIGENS in lines ii and 12
on the right half of the book.
29. Van Marle, xI, fig. i 15. See also the inscriptions on the
books held by St. Thomas Aquinas, Averroes, and some of the
other figures in Benozzo Gozzoli's altarpiece of The Triumph
of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Louvre, Paris (L. Hautecoeur,
La peinture au Musie du Louvre, Paris, 1941, II, pl. 36; van
Marle, XI, fig. I345 for the inscriptions, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 41 ob, iii, iv, v, viii, ix). However, I have not
been able to examine the latter inscriptions as closely as necessary in order to establish with certainty the style of the lettering.
30. Quoted from Proverbs 8:7-l1, at the beginning of the
Summa Contra Gentiles. For the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 4ioc.

LETTERING

IN FIFTEENTH

CENTURY

FLORENTINE

PAINTING

disappearedfrom humanisticmanuscriptsof as early as the secondquarterof the century(Fig. 7)."3

The developmentof the humanistichand in pictureinscriptionssimply did not keep pace with its
like the text which
development in manuscriptwriting. In only a few inscriptionsbefore 1500oo,
St. Bernard is represented writing in the Badia panel of The Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard,
by Filippino Lippi, was the humanistic hand completely understood by artists (Fig. I2)." An

appreciableincreasein the numberof inscriptionswritten in a totally humanistichand does not

manifestitself until the sixteenthcentury.
III

We have a ratherdifferentstory in the use of upper-caseletters. Here the Renaissancechange

led from the so-called Gothic majusculesto roman capitals.3"
Although there are some instances
of romancapitalsin Italianpictureinscriptionsas early as the fourteenthcentury"'and the beginning
of the fifteenth,"3roman capitalsdid not begin to prevail until the 1420's. One of the earliest,
important,datable paintings in which they are employed is Gentile da Fabriano'saltarpieceof
The Adoration of the Magi of 1423, where they may be seen in the inscription of the Archangel

Gabriel'sgreeting on a scroll in the left pinnaclemedallion (Fig. I3). About the same time, or
inscribedon
perhaps a year or so earlier, they appeared in the invocationAVEMARIAGRATIA ...
the base of the throne in Masaccioand Masolino'spanel of St. Anne with the Virgin and Child
in the Uffizi (Fig.

Although these 15)..6

capitals have nearly all the characteristicsof the roman capitals found in
contemporaryFlorentine manuscripts(Fig. 7), they differ conspicuouslyin several essential
respects."First of all, the letters of the pictureinscriptionshave a stronger shading, or contrast
between the thick and thin strokes and between the thick and thin parts of individual strokes, thus
acquiring a stability and monumentality that are generally lacking in the manuscript capitals.
Second, in the manuscript capitals the strokes sometimes taper like fine tails; more frequently they
terminate with thick, club-like serifs, which are set obliquely. The capitals of the picture inscriptions
by Masaccio and his contemporaries rarely have such serifs. The strokes are usually splayed at
the ends, and have flat, even edges. When they have serifs, they are slight and sharp.
The technique of serif-less, or nearly serif-less, capitals with splayed strokes terminating in flat,
clean-cut edges is characteristic of the inscriptions in Florentine architecture and sculpture of the
early Quattrocento, as may be seen in the epitaph on the Tomb of Pope John XXIII by Donatello
and Michelozzo, of about 1425, in the Baptistery of Florence (Fig. i6)."8 Such capitals began to
appear in Florentine epigraphy around 1400," became more frequent in the next two decades,
and practically supplanted Gothic majuscules in architectural and sculptural inscriptions from the
31. Cf. Elder, "Clues," pp. 132-134, 137.
32. See below, p. 17.
33. The adjective "roman" may have been used to distinguish ancient letter forms for the first time in I545, when
Palatino, in his writing book, employed the term lettere romane in lieu of the customary lettere antiche (S. Morison,
Fra Luca de Pacioli of Borgo S. Sepolcro, New York, 1933,
p. 81 [hereinafter referred to as Morison, Luca de Pacioli]).
34. See, for instance, the inscription on the frame of the
polyptych of The Coronation of the Virgin by the Master of
the Fabriano Altarpiece, in the Musie des Beaux-Arts, Ghent
(R. Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine
Painting, New York, 1947, sect. III, vol. v, p. 196, pl. XLII).
35. See the inscribed name, SCSBERNAR[DVs], in the now
almost totally destroyed frescoes by Gherardo Starnina in the
Chapel of San Girolamo in the Carmine, Florence, completed
by 1404 (U. Procacci, "Gherardo Stamina," Rivista d'arte,
xv, 1933, pp. i50-190, fig. 9).
36. Based on Luke I:28. For the inscription, see Covi,
Dissertation, App. 45h. Of crucial importance in this respect

is the inscribed triptych of the Madonna and Saints at San

Giovenale di Cascia, near Florence, dated 1422, recently published by L. Berti and attributed by him to Masaccio. The
letters closely resemble those of the inscription in question on
the Uffizi panel of St. Anne (cf. L. Berti, "Masaccio 1422,"
Commentari, xII, I961, pp. 84-I07; for a discussion of the
style of the lettering and reproductions of the inscriptions, see
Berti, "Masaccio a S. Giovenale di Cascia," Acropoli, II, 1962,
pp. 161-162 n. 2, figs. i-3, kindly called to my attention by
Miss Eve Borsook).
37. For a different point of view, see Meiss, "Renaissance
Palaeography," p. ioi, who regards the letters on the throne
of the St. Anne by Masaccio and Masolino, as well as those
above the skeleton by Masaccio (our Fig. 25) and the Tomb
of Giovanni Pecci (d. 1426) by Donatello (H. W. Janson, The
Sculpture of Donatello, Princeton, 1957, I, pls. io9, iiib)
as deriving from contemporary script.
38. For the date, see Janson, op.cit., II, pp. 59-65.
39. See the dated tomb slabs of this period in Santa Croce
and Santa Maria Novella.

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I420's onward.As in the nearly contemporaryinscriptionsof Gentile da Fabriano,Masaccioand

Masolino, and Donatello and Michelozzo, there is throughout the Quattrocentoa remarkable
similaritybetweenthe capitalsof pictureinscriptionsand those incisedin stone or metal (Figs. 21,
29). Evidently paintersand sculptorsdrew upon a common source, different from that of the
manuscriptcapitals.Moved by the same zeal that led humanistscholarsto discoverclassicaltexts
in Carolingianmanuscripts,painters and sculptors must have sought their models in Roman
Even the meaningattachedto the termlitteraantiquaby the men of the bookprofession
epigraphy.4"
on the one handand the sculptorsand epigrapherson the othergives evidenceof these two different
outlooks. In the inventoryof the papal library,which was drawn up in 1443 at the instanceof
Pope EugeniusIV, the term litteraantiquais used to refer to manuscriptswrittenin the humanistic
hand,whichwas derived,as we know, from the Carolinescript."1In his Commentarii,the sculptor
Ghibertiemployedthe sameterm (in Italian,lettere antiche) to refer to the letters whichhe carved
aroundan antiquecornelianand on the Shrineof St. Zenobiusnow in the Museo dell'Opera del
Duomo, Florence (Fig. 14)." If we examine the latter, we see that Ghibertihad in mind the
sort of romancapitalswhich we find in painting and sculpture,rather than manuscripts,of the
secondquarterof the fifteenthcentury.
Thereforethe romancapitalsof pictureinscriptionshave to be regardedas deliberatelyimitating
epigraphy.It is only in this light that their evolution in Quattrocentopainting may be properly
understood.For in contrastto the slow progressof humanisticminusculesin inscriptions,roman
capitalsbefore the last quarterof the centuryattaineda characterthat unmistakablyrelates them
to genuine classicalforms. We need only comparethe inscriptionson the base of the throne in
CosimoRosselli's panel of St. Anne with the Virginand Child, dated 1471, in Berlin,4"or on the
sarcophagus in Domenico Ghirlandaio's panel of The Adoration of the Shepherds, of 1485, in

Florence (Fig. 17)," with the inscriptionon the base of the Column of Trajan in Rome, which
is generally regardedas one of the finest specimensof Roman Imperial epigraphy (Fig. 18)."
Not only the shapesof the letters, but also the long, finely cut serifs and the relationshipof thicks
to thinsattesta keen knowledgeof ancientmodels.4"
Curiouslyenough,however,althoughromancapitalswere takenup with enthusiasmby nearlyall
the Florentinepaintersfrom the secondquarterof the fifteenth centuryon, it was not until about
1470 that they were purged of the inconsistenciesand some of the nonclassicalconventionswhich
they had at the beginning.The splayed,almost serif-lessstroke was continued(Figs. 19, 20, 21, 22),
40. Cf. below, p. 15 and notes 133-135, where the Renaissance recourse to ancient sources for inscriptions in paintings
is noted.
"Plurimi codices dicuntur scripti littera antiqua. Quae
41.
verba intelligenda sunt, non de codicibus antiquis, sed de
libris ineunte saeculo XV scriptis littera formae antiquae, cuius
usus ea aetate . . . auctore praesertim Nicolao Nicolo, renovatus est" (Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 6 n. i).
See also, in a letter addressed to Cosimo de' Medici on March
20, 1425, the following passage concerning the writing of
manuscripts: ". . . che se ne scriverebbono due di lettere all'
antiqua per questi danari" (E. Miintz, Les collections des
Midicis au XVe siecle, Paris and London, 1888, p. 5).
42. Commentarii, II, arts. 20, 21 (J. von Schlosser, Lorenzo
Ghibertis Denkwiirdigkeiten, Berlin, i912, I, pp. 47, 48).
G. Lippold, Gemmen und Kameen des Altertums und der Neuzeit, Stuttgart, 1922, p. 169, pl. Ix, 8, identifies the cornelian
with one in the National Museum, Naples, while L. Goldscheider, Ghiberti, London, 1949, p. 20o n. 20, regards it as
lost. R. Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton, 1956, pp.
146-147 and passim, does not identify it with any extant gem.
43. Van Marle, xi, fig. 360. For the inscription, see Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Gemdilde im Kaiser Friedrich-Museum, 9th ed., Berlin, 1931,

p. 404, and Covi, Dissertation, App. 170.

44. For the inscription, see note 133.
45. Cf. F. Goudy, "The Roman Alphabet, its Origin and
Esthetic Development," 4rs Typographica, II, 1926, p. 192,
pl. opp. p. 185. See also L. C. Evetts, Roman Lettering: A
Study of the Letters of the Inscription at the Base of the Trajan
Column, New York and Chicago, I938. (I have not seen the
recent study, E. M. Catich, Letters Redrawn from the Trajan
For pertinent
Inscription in Rome, Davenport, Iowa, i961.)
remarks on the style of Early Imperial epigraphy, see Cagnat,
op.cit., p. 4.
46. The original thickening and thinning of the strokes of
the classical Roman alphabet was due partly to the imitation,
in stone inscriptions, of the letter forms written with the quill
on parchment, the following conventions thereby being established: unaccented (thin) horizontal strokes; accented (thick)
oblique stroke when running downward from left to right and
unaccented (thin) oblique stroke when running upward from
left to right, except in the Zi accented (thick) perpendicular
strokes, except in the letter N and the first stroke of M5 the
use of a fine cross-line or serif to finish the free ends of the
strokes (cf. F. C. Brown, Letters and Lettering, Boston, 1921,

p. 2).

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ligaturing (Figs. 22, 23, 24) and center-pointing (Figs. I5, 24, 25) were frequent, such forms
for M (Fig. 23), uncialE (Figs. I9, 27) and squareC (Figs.
as 6 for G (Figs. I9, 20, 26), -

26, 27) recur.While some of these featuresmay be seen in classicalepigraphy,they are on the
whole the result of provincialand post-classicalinfluences.The 6-shaped G and the uncial E are
holdoversfrom the so-called Gothicmajuscularalphabet,though both have their roots in Roman
Romanesqueform."8Both ligaturingand center-pointing
epigraphy."'The squareC is a characteristic
for M, ultimately
had been employedin Italy sinceat least the thirteenthcentury"and, like
derive from Byzantinelettering." Only the splayed,serif-lessor nearly serif-lessstroke,whichwas
also frequent in the Middle Ages," especially during the Romanesqueperiod,"5may be linked
cogentlywith genuineRomanepigraphy.But it is principallythe epigraphyof the earlier,Republican period,"5of provincialinscriptionsof the Late Empire," and particularlyof a class of objects
which,as is well known,had the widest appealduring the Renaissance:Roman coins, in which the
absenceof a true serif and the splaying of the strokeswere due either to the small scale of the
letters or, when the serif was used, to the filling in of the angles formed at its junctionwith the
stroke (Fig. 28)." Thus the romancapitalsemployed by Florentine paintersfrom about 1420 to
about 1470 are in reality a mixtureof mediaevaland classicalforms." In the work of such transitionalmastersas Giovannidal Ponte and Neri di Bicci,one is hard put to know whetherto call the
letters "Gothicizedromancapitals"or "RomanizedGothic majuscules"(Fig. 24)Y-"
need not surpriseus, in view of the other nonclassicaltraitsof early fifteenth
Suchinconsistencies
centuryinscriptions;but their continuationafter the middle of the century,and in particularthe
inclusionof the uncial E and of two differentkinds of M in an inscriptionthat otherwiseseems
47. See above, p. 3, and Cagnat, Cours d'epigraphie latine, pp. 14-16, who reproduces several uncial E's of as early
as the second century.
48. Gray, "The Palaeography of Latin Inscriptions in the
Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Centuries in Italy," Papers of the
British School at Rome, xvI [N.S. III], 1948, pp. 87-89, notes
the occasional occurrence of the square C in Italian epigraphy
of the ninth century, and Lloyd, "Cluny Epigraphy," p. 338,
and A. K. Porter, "Spain or Toulouse? and Other Questions,"
ART BULLETIN, VII, 1924, p. 2 2, have observed its decline in the
twelfth. A few examples of the use of the square C in Roman
epigraphy are recorded by Cagnat, Cours d'ipigraphie latine,
p. 13. For the borrowing of Romanesque elements in the
illumination of humanistic initial letters, see O. Pdcht, "Notes
and Observations on the Origin of Humanistic Book-Decoration," Fritz Saxl, z89o-z948; A Volume of Memorial Essays
from his Friends in England, ed. D. J. Gordon, London, 1957,
p. I89.
49. See the inscription on the painted cross by Giunta
Pisano in San Ranierino, Pisa (E. Sandberg-Vavala, La croce
dipinta italiana, Verona, 1929, fig. i50).
50. Cf. S. Morison, Byzantine Elements in Humanistic
Script, Chicago, 1952, pp. 5-13. Morison is inclined to see the
influence of Ciriaco d'Ancona in the introduction of Byzantine features in such Florentine manuscripts as the Aulus
Gellius Noctes Atticae of 1445, in the Newberry Library, Chicago.
51. See, for example, the inscription on the hem of the
Virgin in the marble group of the Madonna and Child by
Nino Pisano, in Santa Maria della Spina, Pisa (I. Toesca,
Andrea e Nino Pisano, Florence, 195o, fig. 141).
52. Cf. Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," p. Io1, fig. 11.
53. Ibid., p. Ioo, fig. 9.
54. Though not provincial, a characteristic example is the
inscription on a cippus from the aqueduct of Trajan, A.D. 109
(J. Mallon, R. Marichal, and C. Perrat, L'Icriture latine de
la capitale romaine a la minuscule, Paris, i939, No. 2, pl.
II).

55. See also coins of the Roman Republic, such as B. M. C.

(H. A. Grueber, Coins of the Roman Republic in the

1009

British Museum, London, 191o, III, pl. cIII, 5) and others.

As testimony to the Renaissance interest in antique coins and
medals, see the inventories of the Medici in Florence (Miintz,
"Les collections des Medicis .. . ," passim, and Les precurseurs
de la Renaissance, Paris and London, 1882, pp. 186-193) and
of the Doge Marino Falier in Venice (J. Von Schlosser, "Die
altesten Medaillen und die Antike," Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerh6chsten Kaiserhauses, xvIII, 1897,
pp. o04-ro5 n. 2), as well as Ghiberti's remarks concerning
collectors like himself and Niccol6 Niccoli (Commentarii, II,
arts. 19-2o; III, art. 4 [Schlosser, Lorenzo Ghibertis Denk<wilrdigkeiten, I, pp. 45-48, 64]). For the antiquarian activities of other humanists, see P. Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna,
trans. S. Strong, London, 1901, pp. 15, 175-176, 472-473;
J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge,
1908, II, p. 5~ Miintz, Les precurseurs de la Renaissance, p.
90o n. 1i G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana,
Venice, I803, III, pp. 38-43; Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti,
p. 278 and especially pp. 300-302.
56. For a pertinent observation on the "imperfect Roman
lapidary" style of lettering in the work of Benozzo Gozzoli
and Domenico Veneziano, see Schmarsow, "Domenico Veneziano," p. o. For a similar mixing of mediaeval and classical
elements in Florentine and Roman epigraphy of the 1450's, see
the Tomb of Bishop Federighi, 1455-1456,
by Luca della
Robbia, in Santa Trinita, Florence (A. Marquand, Luca della
Robbia, Princeton, 1914, fig. 76) and the Tomb of Pope
Nicholas V (d. 1455) in Saint Peter's, Rome (Elder, "Early
Type-Faces," fig. Io). Other examples of the first half of the
fifteenth century are cited by Mardersteig, p. I86. A similar
style of lettering may be observed also in contemporary Italian
medals (cf. G. F. Hill, A Corpus of Italian Medals of the
Renaissance before Cellini, London, 1930, II, pl. 6, nos. 30-33)
and coins (for the lettering on florins issued during the i5th
century, see H. E. Ives, "The Design of Florentine Florins as
an Aid to their Dating," The American Numismatic Society
Museum Notes, v, 1952, p. io8).
57. For reproductions of paintings by Giovanni dal Ponte
with characteristic inscriptions, see van Marle, IX, figs. 43, 46,
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totally classical,the stanza on the reverse of Piero della Francesca'sportrait of Federigo da

Montefeltre (Fig. 30),58 is indeed astounding. We have to conclude that before about 1470

not even the mostprogressiveFlorentineor CentralItalianmasterwas entirelyfree of imperfections

in the use of romancapitalsin pictureinscriptions.After 1470 we can no longer say this. What
brought about this sudden change around 1470?

It would be reasonableto suppose, because of the Florentine painters' tendency to imitate

epigraphy,that the decisiveanswermight be found in the inscriptionsof contemporaryFlorentine
architectureand sculpture."Indeed, Millard Meiss has called attentionto a strikingchangein the
style of the roman capitalsemployed by Donatello in his pre-Paduanand post-Paduanwork."'
While the inscriptionson his early sculpture,such as the Tomb of Pope John XXIII of about
1425 (Fig. 16)," which we have already noted, the Tomb of Giovanni Pecci (d. 1426) in the
Cathedralof Siena,62and the Campanilestatuesof the Zucconeand Jeremiahof about 1425 and

featuresof the early Quattrocentostyle, the signatures

have the characteristic
1430, respectively,6"
on the Gattamelata at Padua, about I448,64 and the Judith and Holofernes in Florence, 1456-57
(Fig. 31 ),5V consist of charactersthat are at once more regular and more geometric. The proportions

of the latter inscriptionespeciallyare broaderand the shading deeper than in the earlier ones."6
These letters possess the whole complementof classical conventions; they merely lack certain
refinementsthat would permitus to considerthem perfected.That step, or rathera very proximate
one, was left to Leon BattistaAlberti. As Mardersteighas recently demonstrated,Alberti from
And in the dedicationon
the first showsa more consciouslyclassicalorientationin his epigraphy.6"
the Holy Sepulcherin the Rucellai Chapel in San Pancrazio,1467 (Fig. 32), and the inscription
bearingthe date 1470 on the fagadeof SantaMaria Novella (Fig. 33)--the beauty of its letters
was admiredby Vasari"8--Alberti
employed a style of romancapitalsvery nearly like that which
becamethe rule in Florence. Purged of mediaevaland provincialconventions,they are strongly
shaded,are finishedwith fine, long serifs, and have carefully studied proportions.6Monumental
in scale and displayedwhere they are plainly visible, they may well have served as a source of
inspirationto Florentine epigraphers,sculptors,and painters from 1470 onward.70
Yet it was neither Donatello nor Alberti, nor indeed any other Florentine, who perfected the
roman capitalsof the Renaissance.When perfected roman capitals were attained in Florence,"
they had alreadybeenknownfor more than a decadeat Padua,where we find them in the work of
Andrea Mantegna.72The style is clearly forecastin the epigraph,copied from an antiquevotive
stone formerlyat Monte Buso, near Padua," in the Eremitanifresco of St. James before Herod
58. Inscribed on a parapet with a classical cornice and mold-

66. Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," pp. xox-02z.

67. Cf. Mardersteig, pp. 292-295.
Italian humanist at the court of Urbino, probably after a
68. Le vite de' piil eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori,
classical model (cf. C. Gilbert, "New Evidence for the Date scritte da Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino, ed. G. Milanesi,
of Piero della Francesca'sCount and Countess of Urbino," Florence, 1878-g906, I, p. ixo.
Marsyas, I, 1941, p. 45). For the inscription, see also Covi,
69. Mardersteig, p. 295.
Dissertation, App. 67.
70. Ibid., p. 295.
71. Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," p. io9 n. 78, right59. S. Morison, Luminario, or the Third Book of the Liber
Elementorum Litterarum (Eng. version by A. F. Johnson),
ly objects to the understanding of the capitals of this period
Studies in the History of Calligraphy, I, Cambridge, Mass. as simply "perfected" imitations of Roman models. I use the
and Chicago, 1947, p. 6, notes such a change in epigraphy in term "perfected" to distinguish the later 15th century roman
Italian architecture and sculpture between 1455 and 1465.
capitals, refined-as we shall presently see--in the wake of the
6o. "Renaissance Palaeography," pp. Ioi-1oz.
study of Roman epigraphy, as against the earlier ones, with
61. The inscription may, of course, have been designed and their provincial and mediaeval traits. Mardersteig refers to the
cut by Donatello's collaborator, Michelozzo, or an assistant style as "carattere lapidario romano."
72. Cf. also Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," pp. oz2(cf. also ibid., p. ioi).
62. Janson, Sculpture of Donatello, I, pls. 1o9, iIxb3 II,
o107,and Andrea Mantegna, pp. 58-595 Covi, "Lettering in
the Inscriptions of 15th Century Florentine Paintings," RenaisPP. 75-77.
63. Ibid., I, pls. 48, 52b, and 54, 58b, respectively. For the sance News, vII, 1954, p. 47.
73. A. Moschetti, "Le iscrizioni lapidarie romane negli afdates, I follow Janson, II, pp. 33-41.
freschi del Mantegna agli Eremitani," Atti del Reale Istituto
64. Ibid., i, pl. 248n II, pp. 151-161. For a reproduction of
Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Lxxxxx, 1929-1930, part
the signature, see Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," fig. 16.
see
For
the
198-205.
2,
date,
pp.
pp. 233-236 (kindly called to my attention by Dr. Karl
Janson,
op.cit., II,
65.

ing, the text may have been composed by a i 5th century

LETTERING

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Agrippa, which was probably completed by 1453 or 1454 (Fig. 34),"4 and the arch inscription
on the panel of St. Euphemia, dated 1454, at Naples.'" And, as Meiss has stated, it is fully formed
in the signature and date on the cartello in the St. Euphemia'" and in an epigraph in another of
the Eremitani frescoes, The Martyrdom of St. Christopher, of 1456-57 (Fig. 35)."'
Whether or not Mantegna, himself a zealous student of antiquity, was the first to attain perfected roman capitals in the Renaissance, he was the first to employ them in large-scale painting.
However, it is not unlikely that in their rendering he was influenced by his friend, the antiquarian
Felice Feliciano of Verona.'" Mantegna accompanied Feliciano on trips to study and draw classical
monuments and copy classical inscriptions;'" and Feliciano dedicated to the artist a manuscript of
his notes on classical remains, which also contains a sylloge of antique inscriptions."0Feliciano is
the author of a manuscript which may be regarded as a landmark in the history of epigraphy and
typography. Written about 1463 and preserved in the Vatican Library,"' the manuscript contains
among other items an alphabet of roman capitals constructed on the basis of the square and the
circle and accompanied by instructions of how to fashion their shapes and obtain their just proportions. Feliciano deduced their geometry, he tells us, "per misura . . . nelle antique caractere
ritrovato per molte pietre marmoree cossi nelalma Roma quanto negli altri (siti?).",82
It is in the laying down of mathematical rules for the shapes and proportions of letters that
we find Feliciano's special contribution to Renaissance and modern lettering. It is a method of
designing letters that is not found in any of the extant handbooks or advertising samples of the
mediaeval writing masters and scriptoria."8 According to E. P. Goldschmidt, disquisitions on the
Lehmann). The same epigraph was transcribed by Jacopo
Bellini on fol. 44a of the London Sketchbook (V. Goloubew,
Les dessins de Jacopo Bellini au Louvre et au British Museum,
Brussels, 19o8, II, pl. XLIII) and others, among whom Mantegna's friend, Giovanni Marcanova (cf. the C. I. L., v, part
i, no. 2528). For a recent discussion of the discrepancies between the copy by Mantegna on the one hand and, on the other,
those by Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni Marcanova and others, see
Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," pp. o104- 05.
74. E. Tietze-Conrat, Mantegna, London, 1955, p. 193,
pl. 11, dates it "probably about 1454." For the epigraph, see
also Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," p. Io4.
For the painting, see Tietze-Con75. Ibid., p. Io4, fig. 20o.
rat, op.cit., p. 190, pl. 27.
76. Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," p. zo4, fig. 18.
77. On the question of the date, I am inclined to agree
with Meissi but see Tietze-Conrat, op.cit., p. 194. For the
epigraph and its source, see also Moschetti, op.cit., pp. 229-231.
Similarly classical in appearance are the Greek letters of Mantegna's signature on the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, probably of about 1460
(Tietze-Conrat, op.cit., p. zoo, pl. 35). For an interesting
suggestion of another example of Mantegna's knowledge of
classical antiquity, in the Vienna St. Sebastian, see H. W.
Janson, "The 'Image Made by Chance' in Renaissance
Thought," De Artibus Opuscula XL, Essays in Honor of Erswin
Panofsky, ed. M. Meiss, New York, 1961, I, pp. 262-263.
78. J. Poppelreuter, "Zu Felice Felicianos ro-mischenSchriftformen," Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft, xxvII, 1904,
pp. 57-60, postulated that Mantegna may have been the first
to execute perfected roman capitals. Meiss' recent assertion
("Renaissance Palaeography," p. o09) that "Mantegna played
an important part in the revival of the Roman Imperial
majuscule" is, I believe, more judicious. For the question of
Mantegna and Felice Feliciano as originators of the new roman capitals, see also the earlier discussion by Meiss (Andrea
Mantegna, pp. 52-78) and my review of his book in Renaissance Neqws,XI, 1958, pp. 127-128.
79. Cf. especially Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna, pp. 175176, 472-473; Meiss, Andrea Mantegna, pp. 55-56. See also
G. Fiocco, "Felice Feliciano amico degli artisti," Archivio
veneto-tridentino, IX, 1926, pp. 189-194.

80. Cod. 269, Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona (L. Pratilli,

"Felice Feliciano alla luce dei suoi codici," Atti del Reale
Istituto eeneto di scienze, lettere, ed arti, XCIx, 1939-1940,
p. 48). The manuscript is dated January I, 1463. See also
Kristeller, op.cit., pp. 17, 175-176; Fiocco, op.cit., pp. 189I90.

81. Cod. Lat. 6852 R. Sch*ne, "Felicis Feliciani Veronensis

Opusculum Ineditum," Ephemeris Epigraphica, I, I872, pp.
see also Pratilli, op.cit., pp. 55-58.
255-269;
82. Sch*ne, op.cit., p. 255. For the letters, see also R. Bertieri, "Gli studi italiani sull'alfabeto nel rinascimento; Pacioli
e Leonardo da Vinci," Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1929, p. 273,
fig. 2, and Meiss, Andrea Mantegna, figs. 84-89.
83. Although Mardersteig, (pp. 297-298) cites several
models of constructed Gothic letters, none dates before the
middle of the fifteenth century. Of the mediaeval writing
masters' advertisements and samples of letters known to me,
only one uses the term "proportion." Significantly enough, it
was produced by Sigmund Gotzkircher of Munich (d. 1475),
who, as a member of the chancery of Emperor Sigismund,
accompanied the latter to Italy and there probably met Ciriaco
d'Ancona, who escorted the emperor on a tour of the city of
Rome (cf. E. H. Steinberg, "Medieval Writing Masters," The
Library, xxII, 1941-1942, pp. 7-9). Gotzkircher's manuscript,
"Alphabeta Variarum Nationum," is MS 40, 81o in the University Library, Munich. According to Steinberg, the passage
containing the word "proportion" (on fol. 4xr) was apparently copied by Gotzkircher from the advertisement of a writing master of about the beginning of the fifteenth century, of
which the relevant passage reads as follows: "Volentes informari in diversis modis scribendi secundum suas dextras regulas
et proporciones artificialiter, isti veniant et a me fideliter et
cum diligentia magna informabuntur, et taliter quod divites
in hijs dabunt precium congruum, pauperes vero non aggravabuntur." On the whole, we get the impression that mediaeval
writing masters were content to teach their pupils how to handle the tools of lettering and how to execute a variety of letter
forms quickly, but did not concern themselves with rules of
structure or measure (cf. B. Bischoff, "Elementarunterricht
und Probationes Pennae in der ersten Halfte des Mittelalters,"
Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Edward Kennard
Rand, New York, 1938, p. 12 see also W. Wattenbach, Das

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proportions of letters must have begun soon after 1450;84 and Felice Feliciano's manuscript of about
1463 is one of our earliest written testimonials to the practice."8After it there also followed printed
sets of geometrically constructed roman capitals, of which one was issued between about 1477 and

about 1483 by Damianoda Moylle of Parma,"8and anotherwas designedabout the same time by
Luca Pacioli-significantly enough, to accompanya treatiseon proportion-and printed in 1509
(Fig. 36).87
There is no doubt that Feliciano'sconstructedromancapitalsare the result of a zealous study
of Romanepigraphy,as he himself stated.While he may have been stimulatedby other examples
of constructedalphabetsnot known to us, and encouragedby such friends and companionsas
Mantegnaand GiovanniMarcanova,it is not likely that he derived either his letter forms or the
method of constructingthem from either."8The only other antiquarianof the Early Renaissance
who might have taught him in the art of ancientepigraphywas Ciriacod'Ancona.But a study of
the scriptand capitalsof that most passionatecollectorof inscriptionsforcesus to concludethat he
exercisedno appreciableinfluenceon Felice Feliciano in the matter of epigraphy. His roman
capitals retain features of provincial,mediaeval, and Greek epigraphy, and nowhere approach
the refinedcharacterof, say, Mantegna'scapitalsor the regularityof Feliciano's.His script, too,
in general is a mixtureof the humanisticand Gothic hands and Greek.8
It would be mostgratifyingto be able to tracea directlink betweenFelice Feliciano'sconstructed
romancapitalsor Mantegna'sinscriptionsat Padua on the one hand and Donatello's and Alberti's
Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 3rd enlarged ed., Leipzig, 1896,
pp. x88-x 89 [kindly called to my attention by Dr. Ernst Gombrich], who quotes from a manuscript of x275 which contains
a complete set of instructions for writing official texts). They
were essentially hostile to the theory of lettering. For example,
a fifteenth century Modus Scribendi from the Abbey of Melk
(Cod. Mel. in 4. G. x6, in the library at Vienna, published by
S. Morison, A Fifteenth Century Modus Scribendi from the
Abbey of Melk, Cambridge, 1940 [hereinafter referred to as
Morison, Modus Scribendi], actually scoffs at the idea of putting rules into practice: "Ars tenet latini decem et novem
litteras alphabet. Hanc artem dicimus, sed hoc denegat usus.
Usus hoc addit, quod ars sepe deponit" (quoted in ibid., p. x2).
The number and the shapes of the strokes comprising the letters might be listed and described in an allegorical sense (cf.
a 9th century treatise, De litteris Latinis quidem sapiens interpretatus est, Cod. Bern. 417, fol. io5v-xo8v, in the library of
Bern, published by H. Hagen, in H. Kiel, Grammatici Latini,
Leipzig, supp., x870, pp. 302-308, and cited by Morison,
Modus Scribendi, p. xiii n. x); but such recipes could lead to
accuracy in a mathematical sense no more than, say, the discernment of the letter M (that is, the so-called Gothic majuscule or uncial M) in the contours of the nose and eye-sockets
of an emaciated face--a popular mediaeval practice to give
visual form to the word Mors, recalled by Dante in Canto 23
of the Purgatorio:
Chi nel viso degli uomini legge "omo"
Ben avria quivi conosciuto l'emme . . .
84. The Printed Book in the Renaissance, p. 20.
85. Loc.cit.; Morison, Luca de Pacioli, pp. x5-x6. Another
manuscript set of constructed roman capitals, of somewhat later
date than that of Felice Feliciano, has come down to us from
Milan, and is in the collection of Mr. C. Lindsay Ricketts in the
Newberry Library, Chicago (mentioned by Steinberg, "Medieval Writing Masters," p. x4, and Goldschmidt, The Printed
Book in the Renaissance, p. 22; reproductions in Bertieri,
op.cit. [in note 82 above], p. 275, fig. 4, and Goudy, "The
Roman Alphabet . . .," pp. 204-205). For the Renaissance
interest in proportion and theory based on empirical study, see
E. Panofsky, The Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci's
Art Theory (Studies of the Warburg Institute, xIII), London,
194o, esp. pp. Ixo-IIx.
86. Published in facsimile by S. Morison, A Newly Dis-

covered Treatise on Classic Letter Design, Printed at Parma

by Damianus da Moyllus circa 4 8o, Paris, 1927; see also
idem, Luca de Pacioli, pp. 17-18, and Meiss, Andrea Mantegna, figs. 91, 92, 95.
87. Lucas (Paciolus) de Burgo, De Divina Proportione,
Venice, 50o9, chapter xix. For reproductions of the constructions, see also Morison, Luca de Pacioli, passim, and Meiss,
Andrea Mantegna, figs. 97, 98. In the sixteenth century the
practice of constructing letters on a geometric basis was also
applied to Gothic minuscules (cf. Giovanni Antonio Tagliente,
Lo presente libro insegna la vera arte delo excellente scrivere
Venice, x56x, p. x9r). It is typical of the archaeological
...,
exactitude prevailing in Roman letter design after about 1460
that even in manuscripts written in the humanistic hand the
capitals of the titling lines no longer have the thin, even
strokes and club-like serifs common to the early humanistic
script, but correctly reproduce the conventions of Roman
epigraphy, with the proper relation of thicks to thins and with
clean, sharp edges and finely cut serifs (cf. J. Wardrop, "Pierantonio Sallandio and Girolamo Pagliarolo," Signature, N. S.,
II, 1946, p. 6); and although the Italian printers began in
1465 with a script modeled after the humanistic minuscules,
they modeled their capitals after Roman epigraphy (cf. Elder,
"Early Type-Faces," pp. 148-149; Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," pp. x8-9 ; Goudy, "The Roman Alphabet . .. ,"
pp. 191-192).
88. If priority is indeed to be given to Mantegna for the
perfection of roman capitals, as Meiss holds (Andrea Mantegna, chapter iv, and "Renaissance Palaeography," pp. io80o9), it is curious that in the Vatican manuscript Feliciano
does not cite Mantegna's advice, help, or influence, and in the
dedication of the Verona sylloge he praises Mantegna as an incomparable painter but makes no mention of any epigraphical
attainments: "Felicis Feliciani Veronensis Epigrammaton ex
vetustissimis per ipsium fideliter lapidibus exscriptorum ad
splendidissimum virum Andream Mantegnam Patavum pictorem incomparabilem liber incipit" (Pratilli, "Felice Feliciano...
,"p. 48).
89. Cf. Fava, "La mostra . . . in onore di Girolamo Tiraboschi," p. x 16 idem, "La scrittura libraria di Ciriaco
d'Ancona," Scritti di paleografia e diplomatica in onore di
Vincenzo Federici, Florence, 1944) pp. 296-305.

LETTERING

IN FIFTEENTH

CENTURY

FLORENTINE

PAINTING

11

late epigraphyin Florenceon the other. At presentsuch links must remaina matter of conjecture.
Donatello was in Padua in the very years that Mantegnabegan work in the Eremitani,and there
is evidencein the work of both mastersof an exchangeof ideas betweenthem. Roman epigraphy
may well have been one of the topicsof discourse."As to Alberti, Mardersteighas intimatedthat
he may have been one of the circle of acquaintancesof Felice Feliciano, and has speculatedon a
possiblecontactbetween the two masters."But the evidence is scant. It consistsof referencesin
manuscriptsof Felicianoto a novel attributedto Alberti, and the inclusionof Alberti'sname along
with that of Feliciano and other distinguishedpersonsrecommendedas consultantsin a Libellus
Inscriptionum."

We have no indicationthat Alberti or any other fifteenth centuryFlorentine artist drew letters
by meansof rule and compass;"9
certainlythe paintersdid not do so in their paintings.But we have
sketchesof roman capitalsfaithfully copied by Florentine masters from antique monuments,as
in the Taccuinoof Giulianoda Sangallo (Fig. 37),"' or included as samplesalong with drawings
and designs of antique monuments, as in the Codex Escurialensis (Fig. 38)."" Therefore, it seems

that it was the scholars,antiquarians,calligraphers,and typographerswho sought to perfect the

conventionsof a Renaissancealphabetof romancapitals; and artistslike Alberti and Mantegna,
whose interestsextendedto archaeologicalmattersand who were in contactwith such men, or like
Guilianoda Sangalloand the authorof the Codex Escurialensis,who studiedRomanletters along
with architecturaland sculpturalforms, learned, taught, and inspiredothers to execute perfected
romancapitals.

IV
We might be tempted to conclude from the foregoing that in the fifteenth century roman
capitalsand humanisticscriptgradually ousted Gothic letters from picture inscriptions.But that
is not quitewhat happened.While the use of the so-calledGothicmajusculesdid, indeed, gradually
decline as romancapitalsbecamethe favored style of upper-caselettering, in lower-caselettering
Gothicminusculeswere retained.The very small numberof inscriptionsexecutedin the humanistic
hand before 15oo is indicativeof a trend. Gothic minusculesnot only were retained; during the
last quarterof the centurythey were taken up with renewed fervor. In the book inscriptionsin
Botticelli's Madonna of the Magnificat (Fig. 39),"' Piero di Cosimo's Visitation,"9and the Annuncia-

tion in the lunette of the Sant'Ambrogioaltarpieceattributedto Raffaellinodel Garbo,""

to name
a few examples,the minusculesare as thoroughlyand deliberatelyGothic as any of the mediaeval
period. Thus, at the moment when romancapitalswere perfectedand when we might expect an
upsurge of the humanistichand in pictureinscriptions,we find instead a deliberatereversion to
the older, Gothicbookhand.
Interestinglyenough, this also happenedin printingin Italy. As Goldschmidthas stated, both
in Rome and in Venice the earliest Italian printing pressesbegan to operate with type cut after
the humanisticscript,and turnedout classicaltexts and such Fathers of the Churchas Jerome and
Augustine,who were acceptablereading matter for the humanists."However, since the market
90. Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," pp. 102oz-10o3, discusses the question of a palaeographic exchange between Mantegna and Donatello.
91. Op.cit., pp. 297-303.
92. Loc.cit.
93. Alberti's interest in epigraphy is documented-in addition to the inscriptions in his architecture--by an exchange of
correspondence, in which Lodovico Gonzaga in 147o requested
Luca Fancelli to obtain from the noted architect the forms of
the letters for an inscription for the Torre dell'Orologio and
Alberti agreed to supply them (cf. ibid., p. 296).

94. Siena, Biblioteca Comunale, fol. I2V-13r. The inscription is included in the C. I. L., I, part I, no. 1426.
95. For the inscription, see also H. Egger, Codex Escuria.
lensis, Vienna, 1905, 1, p. x6o.
96. For the inscription, see also below, note x4x.
97. L. Douglas, Piero di Cosimo, Chicago, 1946, pls. zo,
21. For the inscription, see also below, note 143.
98. Photo Alinari 36338; van Marle, xII, p. 442 note. For
the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 233k.
99. The Printed Book in the Renaissance, p. ii.

12

THE

ART

BULLETIN

for this class of literaturewas limited, many Italian printerssoon becamebankrupt.100

To recoup
their losses some of them began to print textbooksand liturgicalbooks,which had a wider reading
public.For these, they re-equippedtheir presseswith Gothic type,1o' thus following the tradition
of manuscriptwritingin whichBibles,booksof hours,breviaries,antiphonaries,and other liturgical
and vernacularbookscontinuedto be written in Gothiclong after the humanistichand had come
into use.'o' It was not until the sixteenthcenturythat humanistictype prevailed in all categories
of booksprintedin Italy.'lo
To be sure, this does not accountfor the rise of the Gothic minusculein late Quattrocento
paintingin Florence,but it furnishesa clue as to what made it possible.For the notion that certain
categoriesof texts shouldbe writtenor printedin humanisticscriptand othersin Gothic,presupposes
I) an awarenessof differentstyles of lettering and 2) a hierarchicalgrading of styles.
Neither the awarenessof differentletter styles nor their hierarchicalgradingwas an innovation
of the Renaissance.Both are in evidencein Carolingianmanuscripts,as the page from the Tours
Vulgatealreadymentionedattests (Fig. 3). But the purposeunderlying the practicein the Carolingian period differedfrom the Renaissanceintention.In the Carolingianperiod any text might
be accordedthe same treatment:the mainbody of the text was written in minuscules,the subtitles
were set out in uncials,and the titles were displayedin romancapitals.This assureda clear differentiationof the variouspartsof the text on the page. The hierarchicaldistinctionof letter styles in
the Renaissancewas conceivedin anotherspirit.Gearedto a classificationof texts accordingto their
origin and content,it was motivatedby historicalconceptsand had an aestheticsignificance.For
the beautiful,formal literatureof the Romans,clear, well-spacedroman lettering was essential;
for the vernacularand the bastardLatin of mediaevaltexts, the ornateGothic scriptwas deemed
appropriate.'O0
It would havebeenimpossiblefor the artiststo escapethe impactof suchideas.It is not surprising,
then, that the late Quattrocentopaintersdid not reject Gothicaltogether. However, the painters'
aims were sufficientlydifferent from the scribes'and the printers'that the category of the text
quotedin an inscriptioncould not serve as the sole basisfor the selectionof the style of lettering.
The paintershad to considerthe formal needs of their paintings.Hence both formal and literary
considerationslay behind the Quattrocentopainters'choice of letter styles.'05
It will have been noticed that the inscriptionswhich I have cited occuron solid objects rather
than in empty space in the paintings.For example, the texts of St. Dominic in the Paris and
Perugia altarpiecesby Fra Angelico are on open books; the words of the Baptist in the Borgo
Sansepolcropolyptychby Piero della Francescaare on a scroll; the invocationto the BlessedVirgin
in the Uffizi panel by Masaccioand Masolinois on the Virgin'sthrone; and the propheticallusion
to the birthof Christin the SantaTrinitaaltarpieceby DomenicoGhirlandaiois on a sarcophagus.
The use of objects on which to place inscriptions in painting followed a custom which, though
rooted in antiquity, had been developed largely during the mediaeval period.'06At the beginning
ioo. Loc.cit. According to Goldschmidt, the crisis occurred
in 1472. For the distress of the printers in that year, see also
W. D. Orcutt, The Printed Book in Italy, London, I928, pp.
36, 39.
iox. Goldschmidt, op.cit., p. ii. For the use of Gothic type
by Jensen in Venice after 1473, see Orcutt, op.cit., pp. 63-64,
67.
Ioz. Cf. Elder, "Clues," p. 127; Morison, "Early Humanistic Script," p. 24. See, e.g., the Missal illuminated by Attavante
for Mathias Corvinus in 1485, MS 9008 in the Bibliotheque
Royale, Brussels (P. D'Ancona, La miniatura fiorentina,
Florence, 1914, 11, pp. 794-796, no. 1574; J. van den Gheyn,
Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, 90oi, I, pp. 277-279, no. 449).
103. Goldschmidt, op.cit., pp. 2, 13, 24-26.
104. Ibid., pp. 2, 13; Elder, "Clues," p. 127. Cf. also Mori-

son, "Early Humanistic Script," pp. 7-8.

xIo. For an analogy to the free and selective choice of
letter styles by the late Quattrocento Florentine painters, compare the controversies of Poliziano with Bartolommeo della
Scala and Paolo Cortesi, in which the first asserted that a single
style is not sufficient to express everything and that mere imitation of a classical model-even though the model be Cicero-was not his aim (cited by Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, II, p. 85).

Io6. There is, to my knowledge, no comprehensive study of

mediaeval picture inscriptions, in which the practical, formal,
and iconographic intent of the inscriptions is considered, and
the general remarks which follow would require more adequate
substantiation than can be given here. For a special category
of inscriptions frequently employed in mediaeval painting,
the tituli, see especially E. Steinmann, Die Tituli und die

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LETTERING

IN FIFTEENTH

CENTURY

FLORENTINE

PAINTING

13

of the Christian era Western artists practiced two diametrically opposed methods of inscribing
paintings. Either they superimposed the letters upon the scene so that they appeared suspended in
space, as in the syncretist catacomb painting of Vibia Entering Paradise;`07 or they placed them
on flat, geometric foils or bands, as in the mosaic on the chancel arch of Santa Maria Maggiore,"8'
or on objects, like scrolls and books."0'In the course of the mediaeval period, the latter method
came to be favored, as other kinds of objects, such as tablets,'10architecture,1' halos,112 and garments,11 were also made to bear inscriptions, and superimposed inscriptions were gradually suppressed.' But in the Quattrocento the inscriptions were not merely placed on the objects. Through
foreshortening and distortion, letters were made to advance or recede in space (Figs. 15, 27) i;n
through highlighting and shading, letters inscribed on stone or other hard-surface monuments and
objects were made to look engraved or incised (Fig. 40),"' and those on garments, embroidered
or beaded;"1 through the use of cast shadows and overlapping solid bodies, letters were partially
obscured like other tangible things (Figs. 8, 39). " Such devices made inscriptions in Quattrocento
painting appear as integral parts of objects. Thus conceived, they had to be made to conform to
kirchliche Wandmalerei im Abendldnde vom V. bis XI. Jahr- height and breadth and the more distant strokes are made
hundert (Beitrige zur Kunstgeschichte, N. F., xix), Leipzig,
smaller, seems to have begun in the 1420's.
1892; J. von Schlosser, La letteratura artistica, trans. F. Rossi,
116. One of the earliest examples known to me in FlorenFlorence, 1935, PP. 28-34i idem, "Poesia e arte figurativa nel tine painting of the modeling of letters to make them appear
Trecento," Critica d'arte, III, 1938, pp. 81-90; and H. Rosen- incised is the signature on the base of the throne in the polypfeld, Das deutsche Bildgedicht (Palaestra, 199), Leipzig, 935.
tych of x355 by Taddeo Gaddi in the Uffizi (van Marle, III,
107. G. Wilpert, Le pitture delle catacombe romane, Rome,
pl. v). However, that seems to be an isolated instance, for
1903, pl. 132, 1; C. R. Morey, Early Christian Art, 2nd ed., with the exception of an inscription on the sarcophagus in the
Princeton, 1953, PP. 254-255, fig. 38. This method of in- Carmine fresco of the Obsequies of St. Cecilia, of the beginscribing had been continued without interruption from an- ning of the 15th century, attributed to Bicci di Lorenzo (Photo
tiquity (cf., for instance, the Odyssey Landscapes [G. E. Rizzo,
Brogi 19805; van Marle, Ix, p. 8) and the motto inscribed on
La pittura ellenistico-romana, Milan, 1929, pls. CLVIII, CLIX]).
the parapet in the anonymous Portrait of a Youth, at Chamio8. J. Wilpert, Die roimischen Mosaiken und Malereien biry (J. Pope-Hennessy, The Complete Work of Paolo Ucder kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert, Frei- cello, London, 1950, pl. 43, as Paolo Uccello, about 1430burg i. B., 1916, III, pls. 70-72 (hereinafter referred to as 1435), which are overpainted and therefore not reliable (for
Wilpert, Die r6mischen Mosaiken und Malereien). Since the recent observations on the Chamb~ry portrait, see Meiss, Anstrip bearing the inscription overlaps the feet of some of the drea Mantegna, p. 27), the earliest example of a simulated
figures, C. R. Morey ("A Note on the Date of the Mosaic of engraved inscription in Florentine Quattrocento painting is,
Hosios David, Salonica," Byzantion, vil, 1932, p. 344) has I believe, the signature and prayer on the base of the throne
suggested that this and other inscriptions similarly arranged in Domenico Veneziano's St. Lucy altarpiece, which probably
were probably not considered in the original design, but were dates from the 1440's (Fig. 4o0; for the inscription, see Covi,
added as an afterthought during the execution of the work Dissertation, App. 437a). In the early fifteenth century this
convention was practiced with greater enthusiasm by the Flem(cf. also E. W. Anthony, A History of Mosaics, Boston, 1935,
ish masters (see the Leal Souvenir and other paintings by Jan
PP. 72-73).
Sog. Wilpert, Die r6mischen Mosaiken und Malereien, III, van Eyck, in E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting,
Cambridge, Mass., 1953, II, figs. 261, 277 [hereinafter repls. 32, 42-44, respectively.
ferred to as Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting]). Florenx io. For instance, the titulus of the crucifix (ibid., Iv, pl.
tine painters did not take to it wholeheartedly until the last
i8o).
iii. Ibid., Iv, pl. 196, i; also A. Goldschmidt, German quarter of the century.
See the inscriptions on the collars of SS. Bartolus and
Illumination, Florence, 1928, II, pl. 35, and van Marle, II,
x 7.
Geminianus in the panel of The Coronation of the Virgin,
fig. 7.
12.
Wilpert, Die r6mischen Mosaiken und Malereien, Iv, of 1483, by Piero del Pollaiuolo in Sant' Agostino at San
x
pl. 230.
Gimignano (van Marle, xI, fig. 2573 for the inscription, see
11 3. Van Marle, II, pl. opp. p. 232.
Covi, Dissertation, App. 3490). Like the simulation of incised
114. However, in the painting of the Late Middle Ages or engraved letters in painting, the imitation of beaded or
there was a considerable vogue for the placing of inscriptions embroidered inscriptions seems to have had greater vogue in
on borders and frames, a practice which in Florence virtually
Flemish painting (see the Greek inscription on the mantle of
ceased in the second half of the fifteenth century. For the God the Father in the Ghent Altarpiece, reproduced in Panofssignificance of borders in Romanesque design, see D. Frey, ky, Early Netherlandish Painting, II, fig. 280). A related conGotik und Renaissance, Augsburg, 1929, p. 395 see also H.
vention was the treatment of the inscription as an inlaid or inSwarzenski, Monuments of Romanesque Art; The Art of tarsia design on an architectural element (for instance, the
Church Treasures in North-Western Europe, Chicago, 1954,
signature of Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni fresco
of the Birth of the Virgin, reproduced in van Marle, xIII, fig.
p. 27.
115. Although letters were sometimes distorted and tilted 42i for the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 437h).
in order to make them adhere to the nonfrontal planes of
118. Although practiced occasionally in the Middle Ages
scrolls, books, and architectural settings in Sienese painting
(see A. Goldschmidt, The Printed Book in the Renaissance,
as early as the first quarter of the
century (see the prayer II, pl. 95, and van Marle, II, fig. 1685 InI, fig. 298), it was
inscribed on the base of the throne14th
in Duccio's Maesta, repro- rarely extensive enough to impair the legibility of the text, as
duced in van Marle, II, fig. 7), true foreshortening of letters, it does in the Quattrocento examples cited above.
in which the more distant letters are made to diminish in

14

THE

ART

BULLETIN

the style of the particularobjects on which they were placed. This was implicit in Renaissance
thought and theory. Leon BattistaAlberti, in Books vi and ix of the De Re Aedificatoria,extols
harmonyas a cardinalprincipleof beauty,definingit as a consonanceof all the parts of a thing."'
This is of special significancein fifteenth century Florentine picture inscriptionsbecause of the
types and the style of the objectson which they were preferablyplaced: books and scrolls; architecture, which gained increasingfavor and changed from Gothic to Renaissance;l2o monuments
and small objects of antique invention or inspiration, such as sarcophagi (Fig. 17),"2 parapets
(Fig. 30),122 medals and medallions,128 tabulae ansatae (Fig. 22),'12 and triumphalarches;125'and
genre objects, such as loose stones,126 leaflets and sheets, or cartelli (Fig. 12)."127 It would have
Ix19. Della architettura, della pittura e della statua di
Leonbattista Alberti, trans. Cosimo Bartoli, Bologna, 1782,
VI, ii, p. 133: ". . . la bellezza e un concerto di tutte le parti
accomodate insieme con proportione, & discorso, in quella
cosa, in che le si ritruovano; di maniera, che e' non vi si possa
aggiugnere, o diminuire, o mutare cosa alcuna, che non vi
stesse peggio." See also ix, vi: ". . . la bellezza e un certo
consenso, & concordantia de le parti. . . ." In Della pittura,
II, Alberti states (ibid., p. 306): "Conciosia che ei bisogna
che ogni cosa corrisponde, secondo la verita de la cosa. Et
non e conveniente fare una Venere, o una Minerva vestita di
Pitocchio; ne fare un Giove, o un Marte vestiti di una veste
da donna, saria conveniente."
120o. In late Quattrocento painting many inscriptions, such
as invocations and the names of saints, which customarily had
been placed on halos, borders, or frames, were now placed on
architecture. For the relationship of architecture in Early
Renaissance painting to actual contemporary architecture, see
M. Reymond, "L'architecture des peintres aux premieres ann~esde la Renaissance," La revue de l'art, xvI, 1904, pp. 463472, and xvii, 1904, pp. 41-52, 137-147; V. Fasola, "L'architettura nelle pitture del rinascimento," Architettura e arti decoSir Kenneth
rative, viII, 1928-1929, pp. 193-207, 241-254;
Clark, "Architectural Backgrounds in XVth Century Italian
Painting," The Arts, I, 1946, pp. 13-24, and II, 1947, PP. 3342.
121. The earliest Florentine painting with an inscription
on a sarcophagus of antique inspiration is Paolo Uccello's
fresco of Sir John Hawkwood, of 1436, in the Duomo (van
Marle, x, fig. 137; for the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation,
App. 21 o). The inscription was composed by Ser Benedetto
Fortini after a eulogy on the base of a Roman statue discovered in Tuscany and later lost (W. Boeck, Paolo Uccello,
Berlin, 1939, pp. 100oo, 2; for the Roman inscription, see
the C. I. L., xI, part i, no. 1828).
122. The inscribed parapet first appears in a dated painting,
not in Italy but in Flanders, where it is employed by Jan van
Eyck in the 1432 panel of the Leal Souvenir (Panofsky, Early
Netherlandish Painting, I, p. 196; II, fig. 261).
123. See the Uffizi Portrait of a Man with a Medal, of
about 1478, by Sandro Botticelli (van Marle, XII, fig. 17; for
the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 234), and the
Tempio Malatestiano fresco of Sigismondo Malatesta Kneeling before his Patron Saint, 1451, by Piero della Francesca
(van Marle, xI, fig. 12; for the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 62). For inscriptions on more elaborate medallions, see the frescoes by Filippino Lippi on the vault and
window wall of the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (A.
Scharf, Filippino Lippi, Vienna, 1935, figs. ix 5, 118).
124. The tabula ansata had been employed generally for
inscriptions on Roman sarcophagi and other monuments (G.
Calza, La necropoli del Porto di Roma nell'isola Sacra, Rome,
1940, fig. 96, 2), sometimes in ancient painting (R. P. Hinks,
Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan and Roman Paintings and
Mosaics in the British Museum, London, 1933, fig. I68; for
the use of the tabula ansata and other framing devices for inscriptions in antiquity, see P. Jacobsthal, "Zur Kunstgeschichte
der griechischen Inschriften," Xaopl&es, Friedrich Leo zum 6o.

Geburtstag dargebracht, Berlinx 9xx, p. 453), occasionally for

the titulus of the crucifix in Early Christian painting (Wilpert,
Die r6mischen Mosaiken und Malereien, Iv, pl. 18o), and for
some inscriptions in Carolingian and Ottonian ivory reliefs and
manuscript illustrations (A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen, Berlin, I 914, I, pl. LV, x28). Practically abandoned during the Late Middle Ages, it reappeared for the first time in
Florentine painting in Castagno's fresco of Niccol3 da Tolentino, 1456, in the Duomo, where it is represented as nailed to
the front of the sarcophagus and inscribed with an epitaph
(Fig. 22). But it was not until the last two decades of the
Quattrocento, and especially in the work of Filippino Lippi,
that it flourished as an inscription form in painting (cf.
Scharf, op.cit., figs. 74, 100oo, 101o,
3; K. B. Neilson, Filippino Lippi, Cambridge, Mass., 1938, figs. 31, 33, 35, 36, 82).
For other forms of antique-inspired objects employed by
Filippino Lippi for inscriptions in his paintings, see Scharf,
op.cit., figs. xI2, 114, 117).
125. See Botticelli's fresco, The Punishment of Korah,
148o, in the Sistine Chapel, with the inscription correctly
placed in the center of the attic (van Marle, xII, fig. 66; for
the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 253), and Ghirlandaio's panel, The Adoration of the Shepherds, 1485, in
Santa Trinita, with the inscription on the frieze (ibid., xIII,
fig. 24; for the inscription, see below note 133). For a forerunner to the triumphal arch as an inscription bearer in
Florentine painting, see the fresco of Dante by Domenico di
Michelino, 1465, in the Duomo, in which the famous passage
"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" from Dante's Inferno
is inscribed on the Gate of Hell (van Marle, x, fig. 121).
126. See the Uffizi tondo of The Adoration of the Magi,
1487, by Domenico Ghirlandaio (ibid., xIII, fig. 34). See also
the inscribed fragment of St. Catherine's wheel lying in the
foreground in Filippino Lippi's The Mystic Marriage of St.
Catherine, 1501, in San Domenico, Bologna (ibid., xII, fig.
218; for the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 434f.).
127. The Vocabolario dell'Accademia della Crusca defines
the cartello (also cartellino, cartella, cartellone) as a piece of
paper, pasteboard, or other material (including stone), which
has a flat surface, is generally rectangular and is fixed-like
a label-to a wall, the side of a postament, or the face of
another object. Although the crucifix tablet inscribed I. N. R. I.
is thus a cartello-which,
in North Italian and Northern European painting was sometimes made to appear pliable, like a
scroll (cf. van Marle, IV, fig. 2o95 vII, figs. 24, 30)-the
use
of the cartello for other kinds of inscriptions in Florentine
painting occurs for the first time to my knowledge in Fra
Filippo Lippi's Corneto-Tarquinia Madonna, where it is fixed
to the projecting base of the Virgin's throne and is inscribed
with the date 1437 (ibid., x, fig. 248). Whatever the source
of Lippi's inspiration (cf. M. Meiss, "Jan van Eyck and the
Italian Renaissance," Venezia e l'Europa, Atti del XVIII Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell'Arte, Venice, 1956, pp. 6263, who suggests that Fra Filippo Lippi's ultimate source of
inspiration for the motif was Jan van Eyck, an opinion which
he reiterates in his Andrea Mantegna, p. 28, and, in more general terms, in his article "Renaissance Palaeography," p. o102),
a precedent had already been established in antiquity (cf. the

LETTERING

IN FIFTEENTH

CENTURY

FLORENTINE

PAINTING

15

been contraryto the Florentinesense and theory of harmonyto impose Gothic letters on classical
or Renaissanceobjects, or highly formal letters or script on certaingenre objects. Consequently,
from the 1420's on, whenever texts were inscribedon architecture,tabulae ansatae, medals or
medallions,sarcophagi,or parapets,the letters were roman capitals,regardlessof the content of
the inscription.We have already observed this in the invocationon the base of the throne in
Masaccioand Masolino'spanel in the Uffizi (Fig. 15), and we may note it in the signatureand
prayeron the baseof the thronein DomenicoVeneziano'saltarpiecefrom SantaLucia dei Magnoli
(Fig. 40), the namesof the saintson the front edge of the pavement in the Fra Filippo Lippi's
Sacra conversazione in the Uffizi (Fig. 21), the verses from the Divina Commedia on the tabula

ansatafixed to the thronein Botticelli'sMadonnaand Saintsfrom San Barnaba,28 and the Gospel
passageon the frieze of the wall interiorin the GhirlandaiesqueLast Supper in the Convent of
San Marco.'29Roman capitalsmight be used on other objects, such as books, scrolls, and halos;
but on architecture,medals or medallions,tabulaeansatae,parapets,and sarcophagino other kind
of lettering could be permitted.'Y
For folios or leaflets which were shown in the act of being read or written, or were placed
casually at the side of a person, a special kind of lettering was sometimesemployed, as may be
seen in Piero di Cosimo'sVisitationin Washington"'or, in the early sixteenthcentury (when the
practicegained particularfavor), in Raphael'sSchool of Athens (Fig. 41). Such inscriptionswere
sometimeswritten in a cursive or semi-cursivescript, and made partly or totally illegible. This
served to enhancethe illusion of texts in the processof being written or to create the impression
of somethingvery personal.182
The secondcriterionfor the selectionof letter styles was indeedthe categoryof the text. Although
most of the inscriptionsin fifteenth centuryFlorentine paintingwere religious, nonliturgicaltexts
were inscribedin paintingsof secularsubjectmatter and, in the last quarterof the century, even
in paintingsof religioussubjects.'83Whether quoted from or inspiredby classicalor contemporary
(or near-contemporary)sources,they were generally derived from epitaphsand other inscriptions
on sculpturedmonuments,'"4
coinsand medals;'"'in the last quarterof the Quattrocentothey were
second century B.C. Pergamon floor mosaic in Berlin [Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, Altertiimer von Pergamon, Berlin and Leipzig, 1930, v, pl. xix, i]). In spite of its relatively early appearance in Fra Filippo Lippi's panel, it did not begin to flourish in Florentine painting until about 1480, after which we
encounter it in the form made so familiar by the Paduan and
Venetian masters of the x5th and 16th centuries: the paper
leaflet, frequently creased, and attached to a parapet, wall,
shelf or other such object (Fig. Iz2 see also Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," fig. 8, and L. Testi, La storia della pittura veneziana, Bergamo, 1915,
II, p. 50).128. Van Marle, XII, fig. 79.
129. Ibid., XiII, fig. 79.
I30. There are exceptions, such as the panel of The Coronation of the Virgin by Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, signed and
dated 1439, in the Pinacoteca at Siena (C. Brandi, La Regia
Pinacoteca di Siena, Rome, 1933, p. 332), and the series of
frescoes of Apostles in the apsidal chapels of the Duomo in
Florence, executed by Bicci di Lorenzo, Lippo di Corso, and
Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, to whom final payments are recorded in 1449 (van Marle, IX, p. 52i G. Poggi, Il Duomo di
Firenze, Italienischen Forschungen, II, Florence, 1909, pp.
217-2x8). But the inscriptions on the latter seem totally repainted, if not indeed later additions.
131. Douglas, op.cit., pp. 41-43, 120; pl. 20.
132. Note also that inscriptions in French, which are on
costumes of Burgundian fashion, are usually inscribed in the
spikey, Northern Gothic minuscules rather than the round,
Italian Gothic (see the Portrait of a Man and Woman at a
Casement, from the Workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi, in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, reproduced in van

Marle, x, fig. 156, tentatively as Paolo Uccello; for the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 224).
133. See, for instance, the inscriptions GN POMPEIO MAGNO
HIRCANVS PONT P and ENSE CADENS SOLYMO POMPEI FVLVIVS
AVGVR NVMEN AIT QVAE ME CONTEGIT VRNA DABIT on the triumphal arch and the sarcophagus, respectively, in Domenico
Ghirlandaio's panel of The Adoration of the Shepherds in
Santa Trinita (van Marle, XII, fig. 24, and our Fig. 175 for
the inscriptions, the sources of which remain unknown, see
also F. Saxl, "The Classical Inscription in Renaissance Art
and Politics," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, IV, 1940-1941, pp. 28-29), and the inscription CAES.
AVG. XXXVIII

AP

on the frieze in the backgroundof Ghirlan-

daio's Adoration of the Magi in the Tornabuoni Chapel in

Santa Maria Novella (van Marle, xII, fig. 39), which is probably derived from or inspired by legends on coins of Tiberius
issued during his thirty-eighth tribunician power (cf. H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum,
London, 1923, I, no. 27, pl. 22, 17) or from monumental inscriptions of that period (cf. A. E. Gordon and J. S. Gordon,
Album of Dated Latin Inscriptions, Berkeley, 1958, I, no. 74,
pl. 35a, which is recorded in the C. I. L., VI, part I, no. i253b,
and vI, part 4, sect. 2, no. 31656c).
134. Cf. the eulogy on Uccello's fresco of Sir John Hawkwood, already mentioned (see above, note x12), and the legend
IMP. DIO ET MAX., inscribed on a cartouche fixed to a socle in
Filippino Lippi's panel, St. Sebastian with SS. John the Baptist
and Francis, 1503, in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa (van Marle,
xII, fig. 230), which may derive from a Roman epigraph (cf.
the inscription "Impp. Diocletianus et Maximianus augg ... ,"
copied by Poggio Bracciolini from the Einsidlensis Sylloge [G.

THE

16

ART

BULLETIN

often taken from bookliterature.'aeSincemany of the secularinscriptionsderived from sculptural

or numismaticalsourcesand were placed on architecture,sarcophagi,or medals (or medallions) in
the paintings,they were inscribedin roman capitals (Fig. I7). However, such classicaltexts as
the epigramfrom Martial in the Thyssen portraitof Giovannidegli Albizzi, from the Workshop
of Ghirlandaio,'87
and the motto from Epictetusin the Badia panel and Prato fresco by Filippino
as opposedto "epigraphic,"sourcesand inscribedon
Lippi, whichwerequotedfrom"bibliographic,"
paper leaflets, were also rendered in roman capitals (Fig. I2).188

The choicebetweenhumanisticscript and Gothic minusculeswas reserved for book and scroll
inscriptionsthat were not quoted from classicalsources. It was in these that the Gothic hand
prevailed.For in inscriptionson booksand scrolls Gothic minusculescontinuedto hold their own
as long as theologicaltexts were quoted,as in Botticelli'sMadonnaof the Magnificat(Fig. 39)-.
But in minuscularinscriptionsof seculartexts which were not classical,like the Petrarchsonnets
inscribedon the bookin the Uffizi Portraitof a Womanby Andreadel Sarto, the humanistichand
gained the ascendancy(Fig. 43)-"
In consequencetwo or more styles of lettering might be employedin the samepainting,depending on the kindsof objectson which the inscriptionswere placed, the contentof the texts, or both.
For example, in the Masaccio-Masolinopanel of St. Anne with the Virgin and Child, in which
the invocation AVEMARIA

GRATIA

...

is inscribed on the base of the throne in roman capitals, the

same text is inscribedon the Virgin's halo in Gothic majuscules (Fig. 42). This practicewas
especiallyfavoredduringthe last two decadesof the Quattrocento.In the Innocentipanel of The
which is on a frieze,
Adoration of the Magi by Ghirlandaio and assistants the date, MCCCCLXXXVIII,
is inscribedin roman capitals,while the hymnal verse of the Nativity, GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO,

which is on a scroll borne by angels, is inscribedin Gothic minuscules,with music notes, in the
mannerof an antiphonal(Fig. 44).1 In Ghirlandaio'spanel of The Madonna and Saints in the
Uffizi the invocationAVEGRATIA PLENA and the names of the saintsare inscribedon the architecture
in the backgroundin roman capitals,while the opening passageof St. Thomas Aquinas'Summa
ContraGentilesis inscribed,as we have alreadyobserved,on the saint'sbook in either humanisticinfluenced Gothic or in an early and imperfectly understood humanistic script (Figs. 45, I *
I).

In the WashingtonVisitationby Piero di Cosimothe passagesfrom the Book of Wisdom on the

B. Rossi, "Le prime raccolte d'antiche iscrizioni compilate in

Roma tra il finire del secolo xiv e il cominciare del xv rinvenute e dichiarate," Giornale Arcadico di Scienze, Lettere ed
Arti, cxxvII,

x852,

p. 47]).

(for
135. Cf. the inscriptions CAES.AVG. S. C., ALIOCVTIO
ADLOCVTIO),
Sio

GERMANICVS

CAESAR SIGNIS

RECET,

and

DECVR-

s. c., on the lateral walls of the Sassetti Chapel in Santa

Trinita, by Ghirlandaio and assistants, which are taken from

Roman coins, whose reliefs have been copied in grisaille in the
imperial scenes which the inscriptions accompany (A. Warburg,
Gesammelte Schriften, ed. G. Bing, Leipzig, 1932, I, p. 157
n. x, fig. 40, and Photo Alinari 2417; see also A. Venturi,
"Le sculture dei sarcofagi di Francesco e di Nera Sassetti in
Santa Trinita a Firenze," L'arte, XIII, 1x9o, p. 388). For
inscriptions taken from medals, see above, note 123.
136. See the Sibylline texts inscribed on the vault of the
Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinita by Ghirlandaio and assistants
(J. Lauts, Domenico Ghirlandajo, Vienna, I943, fig. 48; for
the inscriptions, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 176, 208, 209),
and on the vault of the Caraffa Chapel in Santa Maria sopra
Minerva, Rome, by Filippino Lippi and assistants (Neilson,
op.cit., figs. 3x, 33, 35, 363 for the inscriptions, see Covi,
Dissertation, App. 162, i86, i88, 190, 249, 310), and others
cited below.
137. Van Marle, xiII, frontispiece; for the inscription,
see Covi, Dissertation, App. 32.
138. For a reproduction of the Prato fresco, van Marle,
xnu, fig. 214. The text, SVSTINE (in the Badia panel, SVBSTINE)
ET ABSTINE,a maxim of the Stoic philosophers (F. Ferraironi,

Iscrizioni ornamentali su edifici e monumenti di Roma, Rome,

1937, p. 322), was invented by Epictetus (H. T. Riley, ed.,
A Dictionary of Latin and Greek Quotations, Proverbs, Maxims and Mottoes, London, 1902, p. 450) and transmitted by
Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae, XVII, xix [Aluli Gellii Noctes
Atticae, Venice, 1573, PP. 478-479]). I am indebted to Dr.
Erwin Panofsky for calling my attention to the passage in

Aulus Gellius.
see Covi,
139. Luke I: 72-79, 46-493 for the inscription,
Dissertation,
App. 233a.
140. Ite caldi sospiri and Le stelle il cielo e gli elementi
(F. Petrarca, Le rime, ed. G. Carducci and S. Ferrari, newly
presented by G. Contini, Florence, 1957, Nos. CLIII and
CLIV, respectively): ... I SOSPIRIAL FREDDOCORE:/ ... IL

GHIACCIO, CHE PIETA CONTENDA / ... MORTALE AL CIEL S'INTENDE: / ... SIA FINE AL MIO DOLORE / ... PENSIER PARLANDO FORE / ... L BEL GVARDO NON S'ESTENDE / ... ASPREZZA, O MIA STELLA N'OFFENDE / . . . DI SPERANZA, & FVOR D'ER... NOSTRO
RORE. / ... BEN PER VOI, NON FORSE PIENO /
STATO E INQVIETO & FOSCO, / ... SVO PACIFICO & SERENO/
FORTVNA PO BEN VENIR
...
HOMAI, CH'AMOR VEN VOSCO: /...
MENO

...

I SEGNI DEL MIO SOL L'AERE CONOSCO/ ...

E'L

CIELO, COI GLI ELEMENTI A PROVA / ... LOR' AR . . . & OGN

EXTREMA CVRA / ... VIVO L ... IN CVI NATVRA / . . SP...

Luke 2:14. For the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation,

14I.
App. i68h, i.
142. Proverbs 8: 7-1x, quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas at the
beginning of the Summa Contra Gentiles; for the inscription,
see Covi, Dissertation, App. 4 oc.

LETTERING

IN FIFTEENTH

CENTURY

FLORENTINE

PAINTING

17

open codex which St. Nicholas is shown reading are inscribedin Gothic minuscules,whereas the
inscriptionon the sheet on which St. Anthony is writing is a nondescriptscrawl that is not even
legible."4

We may thus say that styles of lettering in late Quattrocentopainting sometimes assumed
iconographicfunctions.If letter styles could be chosento harmonizewith the objectson which the
inscriptionswere placed or to reflect the category or categoriesof the texts quoted, they might
also be made to elucidatethe relationshipof two or more inscriptionsin a painting.The picture
which most adequatelyillustratesthis is Filippino Lippi's panel of The Apparitionof the Virgin
to St. Bernardin the Badia (Fig. I2). In this paintingthere are four inscriptions,each lettered in
a differentstyle. The note attachedto the stone lintel over the entranceto the grotto bears the
classicalmotto, SVBSTINE ET ABSTINE, and is inscribed-justas it shouldbe-in roman capitals.
The uprightbookbehindthe principalfigurescontainsa long passagefrom the Gospel of St. Luke,
whichbeginswiththe words MISSVSEST ANGELVS."1 In conformitywith the Biblesof the fifteenth
century,it is inscribedin Gothicminuscules,completewith an illuminatedinitial letter. Now, the
story which the picture representsis the appearanceof the Virgin to St. Bernardwhile he was
composinga homily on the text Missus est Angelus;' and the manuscripton which he is writing
is inscribedwith a long, wholly legible passagefrom one of the homilies which he composedon
this passage.'"Here St. Bernard,a twelfth centurymonk, not only is representedin the habit of
a fifteenthcenturyCistercian,but he is also madeto use the writingstyle of the day, the humanistica.
The fourth inscriptionis on a quire of parchmentleaves, and is hardly legible. Probablyintended
to representa trial draft, or perhapsthe notes made in preparationfor composingthe homily, it
and GLORIOSA,
containsamongthe scrawlsand illegiblecharactersa few Latinwords, such as MEVS
and some interlineal glosses or corrections.The letters of the legible words are neither truly
humanisticnor truly Gothic. They give the inscriptionthe very characterone might expect of a
batchof hastily written notes that afterwardsare to be cast away or filed.
V
We may expect artistsin any period to be influencedby contemporarypracticesin manuscript
writingand epigraphy.But to be awareof differentstyles of lettering, and to exercisea free choice
of letter forms in orderto serve formal and iconographicends, is unheardof before about I420.14
On the one hand, the deliberateselectionof differentletter styles-outmoded as well as fashionable-to serve formal and iconographicpurposeswas an enrichmentof the Renaissancepainters'
artisticvocabulary.In a broadersense, it is a striking manifestationof that historicalawareness
which the Renaissancewas the first post-classicalperiod to express."'
UNIVERSITY

OF LOUISVILLE

143. Douglas, Piero di Cosimo, pls. 20, 215 for the inscription on St. Nicholas' book, which is quoted from Wisdom
i: 1-6, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 98.
144. Luke i: 26-31; for the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 244.
145. Cf. I. B. Supino, "I1 quadro di Filippino Lippi nella
Badia fiorentina," Vita d'arte, I, 1908, p. 145. However, the
picture does not seem to follow precisely any given legend
about St. Bernard; rather, it seems to have been inspired by
several, namely an apparition of the Virgin while he was ill,
through which his health was restored, and an apparition of
the Nativity, which inspired him to write a homily on the text
Missus est angelus (cf. the legend by Guillelmus, formerly abbot of St. Theodoric near Reims, I, ii, 4 [AA. SS., August,

VI,p. 258]).

146. Homilia II super "Missus est," art. 17 (Migne, Pat.

Lat., CLXXXIII,col. 70). For the inscription, see Covi, Dissertation, App. 230.
147. In mediaeval painting artists used the current style of
lettering regardless of the object or the part of the picture on

which the inscription was placed and regardless of the content

of the text. We may observe this, for example, in Lorenzo
Monaco's triptych of the Madonna and Saints, of
14o6-I4IO,
in the Uffizi. Gothic majuscules are inscribed in gold on the
in
and
black on the
frame and the scroll of the Christ Child,
open books of St. Benedict and God the Father and the scrolls
of the prophets (van Marle, IX, fig. 86).
148. Cf. Vasari's choice of Gothic or Gothicizing frames, as
well as of a Gothic inscription, for a drawing which he considered to be of mediaeval origin (E. Panofsky, "Das erste
Blatt aus dem 'Libro' Giorgio Vasaris; eine Studie Uiber die
Beurteilung der Gotik in der italienischen Renaissance mit einem Exkurs Uiber zwei Fassadenprojekte Domenico Beccafumis," Stidel-Jahrbuch, vI, 1930, pp. 33-37, pl. xIII). For a
comparable exercise of license, based on historical analogies,
see the architectural settings employed in Flemish painting
of the fifteenth century, where Gothic and Romanesque are
contrasted for iconographic purposes (cf. Panofsky, Early
Netherlandish Painting, pp. 133-137).