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Message:: [QUOTE="jamesicus, post: 3329511, member: 14873"] Well thank you for that gracious lead in to one of my favorite subjects Gavin! Yes, I am somewhat obsessed (!) with the inscriptional lettering on Roman Imperial coins. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />  That is mostly a result of my life-long pursuit as a teacher and practioner of formal Calligraphy. Roman  CAPITALIS MONUMENTALIS lettering (the style employed by Roman Imperial stone cutters and coin die engravers) became the model for capital lettering adopted by medieval scribes. That model was actually based on the lettering preserved on the base of Trajan’s column and is at the apex of the pyramid of scripts of the western world - all other writing hands are derived from it. My first (and dearly loved and respected) Calligraphy teacher, Mr. Wilfred Barton, was a taskmaster/perfectionist when it came to rendering Roman Capital lettering and as a young fledgling calligrapher I spent many hours submitting exemplars to him that underwent excruciating (for me) critiques and rejections. I have spent a goodly portion of my life since rendering Roman  CAPITALIS MONUMENTALIS lettering, sometimes in producing commissioned exemplars, but mostly because I love it so much! To me, it’s inherent elegance and beauty is reminiscent of the music of Mozart - so simple when you look at it as written, but so incredibly difficult to render well. Well, enough of that - I just get carried away - sorry. To my mind high quality inscriptional lettering on Roman Imperial coins emerged during the reign of Tiberius and reached its zenith during the reigns of the Julio-Claudian, Flavian and Adoptive Emperors - it was mostly down hill after that! The Tiberius coin you posted has some very nice lettering, Gavin, as does most Tiberian Aes coinage. Following is my favorite example of great lettering on a Tiberius As. The Obverse is fuzzy due to my poor photography skills. but the exquisite lettering on the reverse shows up pretty well: (The titular inscriptions were sometimes carried over on to the coin reverse) <img src="http://jp29.org/ric02os.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://jp29.org/ric02rs.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />RIC Vol. I, TIBERIUS, As, Rome, No. 44 (AD 21-22)Obverse: Tiberius, bare headed, facing leftInscription clockwise from bottom: TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVST IMP VIIIReverse: centered S CInscription clockwise from top: PONTIF MAXIM TRIBVN POTEST XXIIII And here are two abbreviated examples of my own Capitalis Monumentalis lettering (with notes): <img src="http://jp29.org/cal235s.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> Roman Imperial coin inscriptional letterforms are based on those of CAPITALIS MONUMENTALIS employed by stone cutters for edifices, monuments, tombstones, etc. A fine extant example is found on Trajan's column in Rome and the essential constructs of these letterforms are the models for all Majuscule (Capital) alphabets used in the western world. Stone cutters in particular still employ their distinctive proportions and terminating serifs. It should be noted that only twenty letters were normally used in the ancient Roman alphabet: A B C D E F G H I L M N O P Q R S T V X. Our modern J and U were not used, their equivalents being I and Vrespectively. Thus, our modern JULIUS was written IVLIVS. The letter K was seldom used and then only before A. The letters Y and Z were only used when reproducing Greek words. W was not part of the ancient Roman alphabet at all. It was Medieval scribes who formalized the construction models for the letters J K U W Y Z. There are numerous excellent photographs of actual CAPITALIS MONUMENTALIS lettering (including that on Trajan's column) mostly accompanied by location information, translations and analyses, at <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Inscriptions/home.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Inscriptions/home.html" rel="nofollow">Bill Thayer's Latin Inscriptions section of his LacusCurtius web site</a> Although in general the inscriptional letterforms employed by Roman Imperial coin die engravers, particularly those of the early Empire, closely follow CAPITALIS MONUMENTALIS there are some subtle differences, mostly resulting from the limited space available on coins for inscriptional lettering. Most notably, they were modified to produce closer spacing and a compaction of the wide letters C O Q and M resulting in more uniform and "square" lettering. The essential letterform constructs were closely followed for coins of the early to mid Empire who's inscriptions are generally stately and elegant: E and F have equal length horizontal bars; A has a sharp apex; V has a sharp junction; the bowls of B P R S are always nicely formed. P is frequently rendered on Imperial coins with an open bowl, i.e. not touching the vertical stem at the bottom - especially on coins of the early Empire. <img src="http://jp29.org/plnexemp05ss.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> Please try your hand at rendering your own version of Capitalis Monumentalis lettering using a pen or pencil on paper. If you wish, post your example here and I will critique it (and offer suggestions if you request).[/QUOTE]

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