Understanding typography: Giambattista Bodoni and the invention of modern type

Invoking royalty and fashion across four centuries.

Giuseppe Lucatelli, Portrait of Bodoni, 1805–6, Parma, Museo Glauco Lombardi

Over the course of roughly 300 years, Roman typefaces transitioned from what we classify as “old style”—as epitomized by the work of Claude Garamond and William Caslon—to the transitional (John Baskerville, etc.) and, finally, the Didone or…