Saturday, November 12, 2016

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.








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