The Jenson Roman

This one is all about the roman type used in Venice by Mr. Nicolas Jenson, one of the most successful 15th-century printers. Jenson was well-known among his contemporaries because of his success as a printer/publisher and because of the quality of his type. His editions featured several rotundas, and notably, a roman which can safely be considered the prototype of virtually all roman types up to the present. (Or, so says the author.) Jenson’s roman has been highly praised in the past and was used as a model for several type revivals by early 20th-century private-press printers. However, the importance of this type in the development of our typographic letters has not yet been sufficiently recognized. This one totally takes care of that. A remarkable study of a remarkable series of letters.