Italian Hands - Italian, French and English

"The French adopted the hands of the Italians for business & trade. While the French continued to write those forms in a traditional fashion, they also continued to play with adaptations which eventually became distinctly French in character.

When England became the dominant international shipping power they adopted the French form of Italian Hand as their business hand. Just as happened with the French, over time English Italian Hand evolved to take on a decidedly English character.

These 3 Cap 'B's are examples of Italian Hand from Italian root, to its heyday in England, to its final progression in France…

The "Italian B" shows an example of an Italian starting point. — The "English B" shows the English style of Italian Hand in the period of Bickham (1720s-1760s). — The "French B" shows what the French Italian Hand evolved into by the 1770s & 1780s.

Arguably the style had taken on a flowery and contrived feel, and employing every trick they could think of in a single letter: In addition to the traditional spirals & loop patterns, they added excessive tight loops, varying shade angles, lattice patterns, needle-stitch pen techniques, etc. Despite this over-wrought nature, one cannot help but be impressed with the whimsy and shear virtuosity of penmanship it took to produce these letterforms, many of which were done spontaneously."

~May 30, 2016, Don Marsh~
©2016 Don Marsh