Leonard Cohen calligraphies

This is not something one can see cycling around anywhere. In fact these pieces are not publicly displayed at all. I found them in my loft buried among some old papers. These are scraps of old paper, sometimes just old brown envelope, on which I once practiced calligraphy. I just couldn't resist the temptation to look for them having heard the news. I always thought that quotations from Cohen are perfect subject to practice calligraphy. I don't do this any more and anyway this web site is not there to publish my own stuff. I just couldn't resist having heard the news. It is a homage to the great bard.

You know, neither James Joyce nor Leo Tolstoy ever got a Nobel Prize, instead some obscure writers hardly remembered today, like Mikhail Sholokhov or Winston Churchill (Nobel for literature!)

Grafitti at Pompeii

Most people travel to Pompeii to see the ancient murals hidden among the ruins. However, there are surprises for anybody interested in calligraphy. There are places where ancient Roman grafitti have been preserved. They seem to be either in ancient rustics script or in something in between rustics and capitalis elegans. This certainly is not quadrata, as the letters are very narrow but they have serifs similar to capitalis elegans rather than to rustica proper. Anyway the rustica we know from manuscripts might have crystallised later.

Prescissa in Granada

Most people travel to Granada to see the Alhambra, where exquisite Arabic calligraphy can be seen. Few people realise that there is no less exquisite Western calligraphy to be seen in that city.

There is a cathedral there and next to it a little museum, where some mediaeval manuscripts are exhibited. One of them presents excellent textura prescissa, another no less excellent textura quadrata.

Rome

There is no shortage of calligraphy examples in Rome. Indeed, this is where the Western calligraphy was born. The best examples of capitalis monumentalis, our earliest calligraphy style, are on the numerous imperial triumphal arches in the city. However, specimens of very elegant letters can be found in other places in the city, too. Here, for example, are broken stones gathered before the entry to the Baths of Diocletian, right in front of Rome's main railway station.