Talk:Round hand

= Copperplate =

I think it would be helpful to mention (or at least link to) Copperplate, also known as English round hand. Probably Spencerian, too. Kate (talk) 17:16, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Origins of the Round Hand
It is true that the Round Hand is English but merely by default of the English Language itself and the spelling of round. In the mid 1600s French officials were flooded with documents written in various hands and varied levels of skills, never mind artistry. As a result the officials complained that many such documents were beyond their ability to cipher and this led to the Office of the Financier restricting all legal documents to three hands. Namely the Coulee, the Rhonde, and a Speed Hand sometimes simply called the Bastarde. While there were many great French Masters at the time the most influential in proposing these Hands was Louis Babedor, who published his Les Escitures Financieres Et Italienne Bastarde Dans Leur Naturel circa 1650.

In fact with the destruction of the Camera Apistolic during the sack of Rome in 1527 the capitol for Writing Masters moved to Southern France and by the turn of the century the Italic Chancery Circumflessa began to replace and was a technological refinement of the Italic Cursiva. It is this Italic Circumflessa that directly fathered the Rhonde and later English Roundhand.

In England, Ayres and Shelly popularized the Round Hand while Snell is noted for his reaction to them, and warnings of restraint and proportionality. Still Edward Crocker began publishing his copybooks 40 years before the aforementioned.

See Joyce Irene Whalley: The Art of Calligraphy, Western Europe & America circa 1980. --MicPowell (talk) 10:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Change into article style

The Round Hand is English but merely by default of the English Language itself and the spelling of round. In the mid 1600s French officials were flooded with documents written in various hands and varied levels of skills, never mind artistry. As a result the officials complained that many such documents were beyond their ability to cipher and this led to the Office of Finance restricting all legal documents to three hands. Namely the Coulee, the Rhonde, and a Speed hand sometimes simply called the Bastarde.

While there were many great French Masters at the time the most influential in proposing these Hands was Louis Babedor, who published his Les Escitures Financieres Et Italienne Bastarde Dans Leur Naturel circa 1650.

In fact with the destruction of the Camera Apistolic during the sack of Rome in 1527, the capitol for Writing Masters moved to Southern France and by the turn of the century the Italic Chancery Circumflessa began to replace and was a technological refinement of the Italic Cursiva. It is this Italic Circumflessa that directly fathered the Rhonde and later English Roundhand.

In England, Ayres and Shelly popularized the Round Hand while Snell is noted for his reaction to them, and warnings of restraint and proportionality. Still Edward Crocker began publishing his copybooks 40 years before the aforementioned.


 * References

--MicPowell (talk) 10:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Metal nibs not invented until 1828
This claim from the article must be incomplete if not incorrect - metal nibs weren't common until the early 19th century (Seymour 1985), and the intro says Round hand was introduced in the 1660s. "Characterised by an open flowing hand (style) and subtle contrast of thick and thin strokes deriving from metal pointed nibs in which the flexibility of the metal allows the left and right halves of the point to spread apart under light pressure and then spring back together, the popularity of round hand grew rapidly, becoming codified as a standard, through the publication of printed writing manuals."

Howard, Seymour. “The Steel Pen and the Modern Line of Beauty.” Technology and Culture 26, no. 4 (October 1985): 785. https://doi.org/10.2307/3105619. Lijil (talk) 11:13, 13 February 2024 (UTC)