Born in Paris in 1490, at the age of 20 young Claude was apprenticed to the notable Parisian Punchcutter Antoine Augereau. Here Claude trained as a Punchcutter with Simon de Colines and Geoffroy Tory and went on to eclipse his masters.
When he were no’but a young ‘un Claude would spell his surname: Garamont, not out of ignorance or youthful high-spirits but because that was the custom. Indeed most things were spelt which ever way the writer wrote them, and everything was rather confusing. But seeing as nobody could read anyway this didn’t matter very much - as often as not it was the writer who read the writings. But with the onset of printing, and Adult Literacy Programs kicking in all over Europe, well-meaning philanthropists decide the Fifteenth Century was a good time to standardize spelling. It’s taken them five hundred years and we’re still arguing some of the finer points.
[can you have ill-meaning philanthropists?]
In 1523 Claude Garamond [now, you’ll notice, standardized with a d at the end] designed and cut a typeface which he derived from Griffo’s Roman typefaces, and he called it, not entirely unreasonably: Garamond.
The first book to use Garamond typeface was Paraphrasis in Elegantiarum Libros Laurentii Vallae by Erasmus. Not one of his best sellers it has to be said – the film rights are still on option we believe.
Desiderius Erasmus, revising for a spelling test.
No comments:
Post a Comment