Garamond typeface history10/13/2023 The emigration of Robert Estienne to Geneva, with the matrices for the grecs du roi, and some said all the types and the punches too, taking himself out of reach of reproach or worse for his religious views, was a controversial matter, and one that was repeatedly discussed by historical writers. (A showing of the three original sizes, cast on bodies of 36, 24 and 18 points IN together with four new sizes on 16, 12, 11 and 9 points and the note ‘autres corps en préparation’, appears for what may be the first the first time in the Spécimen simplifié des types divers de l’Imprimerie nationale dated 1904.) Christian made use of this type to initiate the making of some spectacular examples of fine printing at the Imprimerie nationale, including the title that has a claim to be among the most accomplished examples ever made of the livre d’artiste, the edition of Verlaine, Parallèlement, that appeared in 1900, to the consternation of some members of the Assemblée nationale, under the joint imprint of the Imprimerie nationale and the enterprising art dealer and patron Ambroise Vollard, with the arresting verse printed in beautifully cast italics over lithographic images in rose pink drawn on the stone by Pierre Bonnard.Ī later and in some ways equally surprising claim by Firmin Didot regarding Garamond relates to the one set of printing types for which he was known to historians: the grecs du roi, the three sizes of greek made with royal authority for the use of Robert Estienne, printer to the king, for which we now know that a formal order was made out to ‘Claude Garamon, tailleur et fondeur de lettres’ in 1540. The name of ‘Garamont’ or ‘Garamond’ had become attached to them and ‘Garamond’ was the form that was adopted. The new director of the Imprimerie nationale, Arthur Christian (appointed in 1895), following in the wake of other ‘revivers’ of older types during the second half of the 19th century who had employed them for the reprinting of classic texts (the recasting of the Caslon types, and later of the 17th-century ‘Fell types’ at Oxford, are British examples), created a complete proprietary typeface for the use of the national printing office by employing the punchcutter Hénaffe to add other sizes to the unidentified old romans and italics, known as caractères de l’Université of which the Imprimerie nationale possessed matrices for three sizes.
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