Drew Ink The year

Humanist

Also called Venetian

The oldest serif class, drawn from the pen: a slanted stress, a sloping bar on the lowercase e, and low contrast between thick and thin.

Humanist: a page of roman type printed by Nicolas Jenson in Venice in 1470, the letters upright with a slanted stress and low contrast.
Jenson's roman of 1470, Nicolas Jenson, printer.
Public domainPublic domain: Printed in Venice in 1470; Jenson died in 1480, and the book is out of copyright everywhere; Commons tags the file public domain, and this house reads a faithful photograph of a flat public-domain page as carrying no new copyright.
Cropped to the text block. Retrieved 2026-09-10.
Humanist: the opening of Sacrobosco's Sphaera mundi printed by Erhard Ratdolt in Venice in 1485, a Venetian roman with a slanted stress after Jenson's.
Ratdolt's roman, Venice, 1485, Erhard Ratdolt, printer. CC0 1.0. Cropped to the printed page. Retrieved 2026-09-10.

Near it

GaraldeTransitionalHumanist sansStressBlackletterCrossbar

Dutch typeGlyphicVox-ATypI

What it is made of

stressobliquethe axis through the thin points of the o leans left, as a broad nib held at an angle leaves it
bar of the eslopedthe single clearest tell against every later serif class
contrastlowthick and thin are close
the classification this term belongs to is retiredde-adopted 18 March 2021AND THE CLASSIFICATION THIS TERM BELONGS TO WAS RETIRED BY ITS OWN CUSTODIAN. The ATypI board de-adopted Vox-ATypI on 18 March 2021 and withdrew its endorsement, because the system divides only the Latin writing system and a later revision put Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew and the Asian scripts together under one heading called Non-Latines. ATypI, "ATypI de-adopts Vox-ATypI typeface classification system", published 27 April 2021, read whole (1,136 words). THE STATEMENT DOES NOT DEFINE THIS CLASS: it names only Garaldes and Linéales as examples, so nothing in this entry's own definition comes from it

Where it came from

Cut in Venice in the 1470s, Nicolas Jenson's roman being the face the class is usually taught from.

Done well