Chancery Hand - "Italian Hand"

"Italian Hand"

The later cancelleresca corsiva ("cursive chancery hand") in which the pen was held slanted at a forty-five-degree angle for speed could also produce beautiful calligraphic work.

It was adapted as the model for the italic typeface developed by Aldus Manutius in Venice, from punches cut by Francesco Griffo and first used in 1500 for the small portable series of inexpensive classics that issued from the Aldine press. In fifteenth-century Italy the chancery hand was employed in correspondence and everyday business, and for documents of minor formal importance.

In sixteenth-century England, this became known as the "Italian hand" to distinguish it from the angular, cramped and gothic English chancery hand that had developed from the earlier tradition.

Among the historical exponents of this chancery hand, the most famous is Ludovico degli Arrighi, a scribe in the Papal Curia. He wrote a book on the principles of writing, L'Operina in 1522, that embodies the basic calligraphic principles of the italic calligraphic hand of today.