LANCIONE, Sempronio.

by Sempronio Lancione

£5,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

Extremely rare, possibly unrecorded variant edition of this writing manual for secretaries, claiming to present new examples of cursive script by the Roman calligrapher Sempronio Lancione. This was the earliest of four manuals of cursive script published by Lancione between 1601 and 1613 (see A.S. Osley, Luminario: An Introduction to the Italian Writing-Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Leiden, Brill, 1972), p. 161). The title-page advertises the invention of twenty-two rules with their signs (images), so that one can quickly acquire this noble art without the presence of a teacher. A second prefatory leaf claims that the elements of the system of writing, designed for the most accurate use by secretaries, and others, has been derived from the rules of the art of writing and from mathematics. (Lancione, who also published works of philosophy, was trained in mathematics and geometry: in 1629 he published a treatise on spheres with a view to achieving a theory of the tides.) There is also a plate with examples of exercises for copying single letters, ligatures, nonsensical strings of letters and calligraphic devices in order to strengthen the hand. There are further entire alphabets and numerous examples of secretarial letters, often signed by Lancione or with one of his monikers, Il Romano or Romanus, and from locations including Venice, Rome and Verona. This and other works of Lancione were often reprinted. For instance, these plates appear eccentrically renum

• Binding: Hardcover

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