In 2016 type designer, software developer, and lecturer Frank E. Blokland successfully defended this PhD dissertation at Leiden University. Blokland’s research is conducted to test the hypothesis that Gutenberg and consorts developed a standardised and even unitised system for the production of textura type, and that this system was extrapolated for the production of roman type in Renaissance Italy. For roman type, Humanistic handwriting was moulded into a prefixed standardised system already developed for the production of gothic type. Renaissance typographic patterning was in part determined by prerequisites for the production of type. As a consequence, the typographic conventions are not purely the result of optical preferences predating the invention of movable type but are also the result of the standardisation of characters in the Renaissance type production.
The a4-sized book contains 455 pages and is printed in black and white.
It is available from Lulu.
