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  1. Discover
  2. Paper: EWP III: Renaissance, Recovery & Reform, 1400-1650
  3. Unit: Humanism and Printing

Bembo Family's Sallust

Tags

humanism
humanist cursive
italics

Commentary

Bembo Family's Sallust
Accession number: 
MS Richardson 17. De bello Catilinae; De bello Iugurthino. f. 51

A winged Pegasus, emblem of the prominent Venetian Bembo family, leaps through the prismatic initial ‘F[also]’ beginning Sallust’s history of the Jugurthine War.  This book is a perfect example of a literary manuscript in the humanist tradition.  The humanist cursive (here executed by the scribe Bartolomeo Sanvito) had become the most prestigious hand for this type of book, and was the forerunner of italic.

Credit: Oren Margolis (July 2018)