Note 338 — Chapter VIII · JOSEPH MOXON, 1659.

The theory of the proportion of letters had been dealt with by several foreign authors in the sixteenth century. In 1509 Fra Luca Pacioli’s book, entitled De Divinâ Proportione, was printed at Venice, containing woodcut illustrations of the various letters of the alphabet. In 1525 Albert Dürer published in Nuremberg his Unterweisung der Messung mit dem Zirkel und Richtscheit, reducing all letters to a combination of circles and straight lines. In 1529 Geofroy Tory’s Champfleury appeared at Paris, an extraordinary treatise, deriving every letter of the Latin alphabet from the goddess IO, of the letters of whose name every other letter is formed; and proportioning each to the human body and countenance in their various poses and aspects. Fantastic as his work was, it is credited with having revolutionised the form of the Roman letter in France. Like Moxon, Tory sub-divided the square of each letter into a number of minute squares, in which he constructed his model letters. A somewhat similar work was published at Saragossa, in Spain, in 1548, by Ycair, entitled Orthographia Practica, containing specimens of alphabets, and intended, like all of the above-named works, more for the use of the caligrapher and sculptor than for the printer.