Alphabet Pages - Roman Rustic

Rustic letter form, Speedball India Ink on Artificial Parchment

This was one of the first alphabets I learned, mainly because it showed up second on a list of alphabets (preceded only by Roman Capitals) that I acquired from Reed College outside of Portland, OR. I was doing mainly Italic early on and this alphabet started out on a very steep nib angle and then changed nib angle before the letter was complete. All this appealed to the technical side of my brain.

A majuscule alphabet, it was a logical replacement for Roman Capitals that were too well rounded. Rustic fit in well with the growing production of codices from animal skins. It was narrow and took up less space per word than Roman Capitals. As a book hand it was a beautiful letter form and forms up well when proper spacing is used. It fills the page with lots of downstrokes (only four true bowl letters) and has a very vertical feel to it. This was one of the alphabets that I practiced every day solid for three months. This brought on muscle memory in which repetition builds familiarity.

Today, you can see this alphabet, in a few manuscripts that have survived through the centuries, in the form of a book hand. A book hand produces a much more exact rendering of the alphabet’s essence and utilizes a scribes’ expertise. While Roman Cursive can be seen in day to day recordings, it is the Roman Rustic that is displayed in the formal secular and religious texts of the time. This letter form was used in the later part of the Roman Empire (1st - 5th century), but continued to be used into the 9th century. The most famous of the old manuscripts using Rustic is the Vergilius Romanus, (4th century). It is well preserved and demonstrates the Rustic alphabet as a book hand script.

Essentials:

Letter size  =  7 pen width

Pen angle  =  80° AND 50°

No ascenders, no decenders

Minimal serifs

No ligatures

This letter form was used in the later part of the Roman Empire (1st - 5th century), but continued to be used into the 9th century. The most famous of the old manuscripts using Rustic is the Vergilius Romanus, (4th century). It is well preserved and demonstrates the Rustic alphabet as a book hand script.

I used an artificial parchment paper for the Rustic alphabet page. The Rustic alphabet was lettered in waterproof black ink with a brause nib. This was the first alphabet page I produced and as such, it was the model for letter size and line spacing. This page became the template for the later pages.

I tried to bring some continuity to the letter form and any color designs that I chose to include on the page and with this in mind I looked for border designs from walls of excavated Roman homes to be included with this page.

Borders Designs from Excavated Roman Walls. Acrylic Ink and Watercolor

The upper and lower borders were found on Roman Wall Paintings at Pompeii. Most wall paintings were fresco in nature, but tempera was also used after the frescoes dried to add detail to the painting. The borders were done in watercolor and acrylic ink. The line drawing in the middle of the page came from a woodwork design found in the Oblate Monastery in Florence, Italy. The design was drawn with acrylic ink.

The early alphabets did not use all of the letters that we use today. This is reflected in the two lines of letters. The top line are the letters that would have be used in those books that were produced at the time, usually in Latin. The second line are the letters that needed to be added in order to use this alphabet today. Curiously, the letter K was not a staple in Latin, but I was able to find it in one of the manuscripts that used the Rustic alphabet. I suspect it was used for a proper foreign name as other languages used that letter.

Roman Rustic

You really get a feel for how the letter form looks when you letter several words together. The text included on this alphabet page contains simple words in Latin.