Michelangelus typeface from the Vatican

michele casanova
michele casanova Posts: 97
in Miscellaneous News
Michelangelus is a typeface designed by Studiogusto for Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano, licensed to and distributed by Microsoft.
  • There is no variable font version.
  • As one would expect from the Vatican, it includes all the crosses specified by Unicode  :)
  • The slant of the cursive version seems excessive to me compared to the slant of the letters in the document signed by Michelangelo (though this is likely a matter of taste).
  • I would have preferred an open font license.


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Comments

  • Christian Thalmann
    Christian Thalmann Posts: 2,089
    Fun idea, but not well executed IMHO. It looks like someone’s first attempt at a Roman, and Apple Chancery as the Italic.
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,262
    michele casanova said:
    I would have preferred an open font license.
    Having gone to the link you provided, I see it is available for free download, but it can't be used as a webfont, and the reasons why make it appear that this typeface is now an addition to the fonts that come with your copy of Microsoft Windows. Which presumably means that Macintosh and Chromebook users shouldn't download it.
    I do find it odd that the Vatican is giving gifts to Microsoft.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,811
    edited October 12
    .
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,849
    You don’t find this image a convincing depiction of the workflow? :D

  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,262
    edited October 14
    michele casanova said:
    • The slant of the cursive version seems excessive to me compared to the slant of the letters in the document signed by Michelangelo (though this is likely a matter of taste).

    The cursive italics of a typeface are intended to convey emphasis; handwriting is simply a means of expressing text. So for the cursive portion of a typeface to be sloped more than the handwriting that inspired it is not necessarily a bad thing.
    The press release and slick promotional site consist of everything I hate about press releases and slick promotional sites.
    While I'm not usually inclined to be quite so judgmental... the phrase at the end, "a structure so rigorous that it allows the form to remain free" did strike me as an attempt to appear to say something without meaning anything. I prefer words to communicate meaning in a manner that minimizes the chances of misunderstanding.
    I mean, I can sort of get the idea that a typeface being well structured is a good thing, and for the curves, the shapes, in the letters to have the freedom of handwriting instead of being laid out with compass and straightedge makes for a better chance of artistic beauty... so this seems to be a statement that this typeface delivers these two good, but seemingly contradictory, things... without giving away a clue about how.
    We wrote our letters freely by hand, and then we fitted them neatly into boxes only by enlarging or reducing them? Oh, and tastefully adjusting the stroke widths to match. Probably that isn't what they did, but I could see someone trying this approach.
    EDIT: On reflection, though, I see that I might be quite unfair. Words do not always serve to convey clear, unambiguous, facts or directions. Sometimes they are meant to evoke a feeling.
    And the Italians have a proverb: "A translator is a traitor".
    It is quite likely that what was written on that web page was originally written in Italian - and, so, perhaps were I a native speaker of Italian, and read it in the original, I could appreciate the subtle meaning that phrase was intended to convey - a meaning too subtle to be conveyed in the simple literal meanings of words.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,408
    edited October 14
    Unfortunately, no examples of Jesus’ writing are extant.
    Nonetheless, should it not be possible to produce a font based on his hand?
    After all, artists have for centuries depicted his likeness, despite the absence of contemporary portraits.
    Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek would be appropriate, and Latin could be derived from the Greek.
  • Qwerasd
    Qwerasd Posts: 19
    edited October 14
    Nick Shinn said:
    Unfortunately, no examples of Jesus’ writing are extant.
    Nonetheless, should it not be possible to produce a font based on his hand?
    After all, artists have for centuries depicted his likeness, despite the absence of contemporary portraits.
    Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek would be appropriate, and Latin could be derived from the Greek.
    That presupposes that Jesus was literate. I judge it as somewhat unlikely that the historical Jesus could read, much less write. That said, I suppose one could base a typeface on the hand typically used in that area of the world in the 1st century, as, if Jesus could write, then it would probably have resembled that.
  • Dan Reynolds
    Dan Reynolds Posts: 189
    edited October 14
    Whether or not the historical Jesus could read or write, the Gospel of Luke has him reading from Isaiah, which presumably would have been in Hebrew. In John‘s Gospel, he writes something in the sand, though perhaps it was not something that we would define as written text.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,408
    edited October 14
    Notably, Cecil B. DeMille consulted the appropriate scholars for the Almighty’s “handwriting” in The Ten Commandments.
    But not much use for a paleo-hebrew font today.
  • Erik
    Erik Posts: 37
    Nick Shinn said:
    the Almighty’s “handwriting” in The Ten Commandments.
    […]
    paleo-hebrew font
    Slab seraph?…
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,849
    edited October 15
    Whether or not the historical Jesus could read or write, the Gospel of Luke has him reading from Isaiah, which presumably would have been in Hebrew.
    Literacy is a continuum of skills, not a single measured achievement. In the context of scripture reading, regularly repeated prayers, etc., there is a often an element of memorisation from oral recitation associated with the text. I can read and understand a lot of common liturgical texts in Latin and Ukrainian, but I wouldn’t call myself literate in either language.
    Interestingly, that text from Isaiah as it is quoted in Luke’s Gospel is from the Septuagint, so while Christ may have read it in Hebrew, Luke is quoting the recognised Greek text. While it is likely that Christ would have been reading from a Hebrew text in any town in Galilee — possibly with an oral translation into Aramaic for the listeners —, there is evidence that the scriptures were regularly read in Greek in Hellenized parts of Judea and among Jewish communities in e.g. Alexandria. So it isn’t inconceivable that Christ would also have been familiar with Greek texts.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,408
    Qwerasd
    I suppose one could base a typeface on the hand typically used in that area of the world in the 1st century, as, if Jesus could write, then it would probably have resembled that.
    That was my inference. 
    And at first I thought diligent research would be the way to proceed.
    However, as the Vatican typeface looks nothing like Michelangelo’s handwriting, being merely branded with his well-known name, why bother? 
    Besides, there’s already Chris Costello’s brilliant Papyrus, which was designed with a sincere “early Christian” vibe.
    And, more in the line of parody, Phil Grimshaw’s equally wonderful Tempus.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,530
    Michelangelo works in mysterious ways ;-)

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