Francesco Griffo

Francesco Griffo (* 1450 in Bologna, † 1518 ibid; Francesco da Bologna ) was an Italian type founder, engraver, type designer, typographer. He cut the first italic print fonts for use in letterpress printing.

Life

From the year 1495 Francesco Griffo for Aldus Manutius worked, for whom he first produced Greek letters, imitating the handwriting Greek scholar with their tangled lines. These writings - although very popular with the scholarly audience - were not very reader-friendly and made ​​it difficult for translators to work. 1495 published a five-volume edition at Aldus Manutius Aristotle in a cut by Griffo Greek italics. In February 1496 Griffo developed initially for the essay De Aetna of Pietro Bembo an Italian scholar writing, which soon became very popular under the name of Bembo. 1501 Griffo developed after the pattern of a papal chancery script font style that imitated the appearance of a script, but did not have the disadvantage of poor readability and the difficulty of feasibility in the sentence. This first italics was used in Latin letters for a yellowing issue that brought out Manutius. Probably should also commercial destinations in the success of Italic have played a role, because this narrow current typeface, allowing a better use of the paper size.

1502 eliminated Griffo and Manutius in dispute. A year later, he cut his second italics for a Petrarchan output from the printer Gershom ( Girolamo ) Soncino, the Fano appeared in competition with the epoch-making edition of Manutius (1501 ) 1503, and in the dedication of the printer to Cesare Borgia complaining that the name of Manutius connected invention italics for Francesco Griffo. 1516 opened his own printing Griffo in Bologna. He put his first print in a further cut by himself, italic font.