Bastarda
Various scripts and typefaces of Renaissance Europe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bastarda or bastard, also known as hybrid, hybrida, or Mongrel hand,[1] is a term applied to a variety of variant or altered scripts and typefaces originating in western Europe during the Renaissance. They were often used as business or court hands.[2]
Scripts
Bastard gothic constituted blackletter manuscript hands or gothic cursive hands used in various parts of continental Europe, mainly in France, the Netherlands, and Germany, during the 14th and 15th centuries, mainly to write vernacular narratives and common documents.[3] Similar English scripts of noncontinental Europe are sometimes distinguished as "bastarda Anglicana".
The French bâtarde italienne was developed in the 17th century by writing master Louis Barbedor, combining the French Ronde with the Italian hand.[4]
Spanish bastarda, also was a modified form of Italic script which remained in use there until as late as the 1830s.[5] The paleographer A. S. Osley characterized this bastarda as the "true successor" of the Italic hand, which had been supplanted by an early form of copperplate script outside Spain.[6]
Type
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Early printers produced a variety of typefaces based on local gothic bastarda based on vernacular manuscript hands.[3][7]
Over time, most of Europe's printers standardized on Antiqua (or "roman") typefaces, and bastarda type fell out of use in most countries.[3] Despite this trend, the German variety developed into the national Fraktur type, which remained in use until the mid-twentieth century.[8]
British typeface designer Jonathan Barnbrook has designed a contemporary interpretation of these early typefaces titled Bastard.
See also
- Chancery hand
- Court hand (also known as common law hand, Anglicana, cursiva antiquior, or charter hand)
- Italic script
- Antiqua–Fraktur dispute
