P22 Operina was created by Ludovico Arrighi, James Grieshaber and released by IHOF. P22 Operina includes 4 styles and household package choices. p > Operina is based upon a 16th-century lettering model of the scribe Ludovico degli Arrighi (Vicentino Ludovico degli Arrighi) used in his 1522 instructional lettering book, 'La Operina da Imparare di scrivere littera Cancellarescha.' This book includes what is considered to be the earliest printed examples of Chancery Cursive.

Rather than attempt to replicate a best, smooth, type-like variation of Ludovico's hand, which has been attempted in the past, the designer opted to leave in some rough edges and, thereby, produce a look that simulates the capitivating artifacts of quill and ink lettering on parchment.

When reviving an old design, a designer is confronted with lots of difficult decisions, such as whether to aim for supreme credibility or to modify the alphabet for contemporary use. The decision here was to develop a typeface that looks like the 16th-century Italian hand-lettering master's, however is also useful to the contemporary user.

Because the letters U u W w J j and our modern Arabic characters were not in usage during the advent of these original letterforms, these needed to be inserted. To make a total and useable font set, we also needed to style a number of the additional and diacritical characters to match the appearance of the alphabet.

There are 3 font styles in this set: Romano( simple), Corsivo( more complex), and Fiore( swash). Romano is the most suppressed, it consists of Roman looking caps and has lining figures. Corsivo is more elaborate, it has more ornamental uppercase and an alternate version of the lowercase with longer ascenders and descenders, and old design figures. Fiore, the swash font style, is the most elaborate with the longest ascenders and descenders. You may not wish to use the Fiore variation by itself, particularly as all caps; it is indicated to boost the other 2 alphabets due to the fact that it includes the most sophisticated capitals and has numerous extra ligatures.

P22 Operina Pro is an OpenType version that includes over 1200 characters. It includes Small Caps, Old Design Figures, complete European, Cyrillic and Greek character sets and a new OpenType initially with automated Roman Numerals. Simply type any number and with the feature, it will transform to Roman Characters!

Font Family:
· P22 Operina Romano
· P22 Operina Corsivo
· P22 Operina Fiore
· P22 Operina Pro

Tags: 16th-century, ancient, arrighi, calligraphy, chancery, cursive, early fonts, italian, pirate, poetica alternative, renaissance, rough, script, swash