Dialogue de la Vie et de la Mort.

Robert Granjon

Dialogue de la Vie et de la Mort.

Lyon

Robert Granjon

1557

Octavo

If Robert Granjon had his way, works from different nationalities in different languages would be printed in different types: the Italians had their elegant humanistic roman and chancery cursive, the Germans had their fraktur and schwabacher fonts, and Granjon hoped that a unique gothic cursive style would be adopted as the preferred type for French texts. Towards that goal he produced a so-called civilité type. This category of types is named after this book.

While Granjon’s civilité types are a virtuosic achievement, it is his italic fonts that have had the most lasting influence.