GOTHIC, SCRIPT AND MINIATURE. - Toward the end of the 12th century, in the field of Latin scripts, a script replaced the Carolingian minuscule which, opposing to the round forms and the classical elegance of the "littera antiqua" (Carolingian) a hard and angular stroke, was recognized by the humanists as "barbarous" and therefore received the name of Gothic, with the same pejorative value given to this designation as attributed to that particular architectural style which in the same period of time triumphed over the Romanesque. The new script soon breaks up into a series of types, which diverge not only in relation to the geographical area in which they develop but, within certain limits, also in relation to the nature of the text: the Gothic used in liturgical books has, for example, quite a different appearance from that of mercantile registers. Nevertheless, one common characteristic is always recognizable, both in the book forms and in the cursive ones, consisting essentially in a rigid, broken stroke, which replaces the curves of the Carolingian minuscule with straight stems and bars, consequently modifying the lower and upper arches into very pronounced angles and giving strong emphasis to the contrast between thick and thin strokes.
I. ORIGIN
The origin of Gothic script has not yet been sufficiently clarified: it may nevertheless be said that it is the result of a process of stylization, which fixes, in forms particularly attuned to the taste of the age (one need only think of architecture), a ductus born of a calligraphic effort, that is, of the need to preserve artificially the calligraphic appearance of a script which, by reason of its agile and rounded strokes, tended imperceptibly but inevitably toward cursive forms: so much so that the first symptoms can already be discerned in certain manuscripts of the 11th century. To what extent a supposed influence of Beneventan script (v.) acted upon the formation of Gothic script, as the Russian scholar O. Dobiache-Rojdestvensky maintains, cannot be determined. Certainly, on the other hand, the exclusive use of the pen as a writing instrument (especially as regards the alternation of thick and thin strokes) and the spread of culture beyond the monastic centers contributed to determining its type: for at the universities, in response to the need to disseminate study texts in great number, writing workshops indeed arose whose scribes worked with an exclusively commercial aim (v. PECIA) and lacked, especially at the beginning, a school tradition, so that calligraphic script, being unfamiliar to them, necessarily became rigid and artificial. It is probable, but not yet demonstrated, that Gothic script originated in northern France, but it spread rapidly throughout Western Europe and survived until the 15th century. In the Germanic countries it has lasted down to our own days.
II. THE GOTHIC LIBRARY
A systematic classification of the various types of minuscule Gothic has yet to be made: the list that follows is therefore limited to those that are best defined and commonly accepted.
The type in which the distinctive elements of Gothic are most pronounced is found in missals and in liturgical texts intended for recitation in choir, in which the need for reading to be easy despite the distance between the lectern and the stall leads to the use of showy characters, with a completely artificial ductus: this is the so-called choral Gothic, called Fraktur by the Germans and lettre de forme by the French. It is also found in literary texts, especially in the Germanic countries, but ordinarily in reduced proportions, and is then designated by the name textura (Text). In Italy the breaking of the lines, the harshness of the stroke, the sharpness of the angles are kept within more modest proportions, and the script always preserves a certain roundness in its tracing, so that Italian Gothic was also called rotunda: its most characteristic expression is found in the Bolognese university manuscripts (littera Bononiensis). French Gothic artificially develops its elements in height, giving the script a very careful appearance, with very narrow letters rich in sharp angles: but in university texts (littera Parisiensis) the ductus is freer, the letters are less tall and the script turns out more irregular. Similar is English Gothic, which is however executed in the university manuscripts (littera Oxoniensis) with greater care. A particular type of Gothic developed especially in Italy in the 14th century: it is a script that already foreshadows, through some of its elements, to the advent of humanistic script (v.) and therefore takes the name Gothic-Antiqua.
All these types have in common the angular appearance and the broken movement, which at times is limited to the separation of the connecting element from the main stroke, at times (especially for m, n, u) affects the stems themselves, executed in two stages. The a (cf. table, no. 1) is initially of the uncial type, with the right stroke rigid; in the 13th century it begins to present a crowning at the top, which in the following century closes into a loop, so that the letter results as formed of two arches, resting on the right on the main stem; in ligature the a often preserves the traditional minuscule form, but with the lateral lines straight and the arches much accentuated. The c has an appearance similar to the e and the t; except that the e closes its crowning with a light oblique stroke that joins it to the stem, and the t has the main line that projects a little above the crossbar; in the 14th century the c is sometimes traced without the lower curve that closes the vertical stroke. The minuscule d yields the field, especially from the 14th century, to the d of the uncial type, which is used preferably before round letters (a, e, o, or also "round" r). The h has the right stroke rigid up to the height of the line, then curves inward, descending ever more below the main stem. The i acquires from the 14th century the diacritic mark even when isolated: in the 14th century the dot begins to be found. The r has a straight form (minuscule) and a round one (improperly called "Gothic"): the latter derives from an r of the majuscule type joined in ligature with letters that close on the right with the same curve as the o (b, round d, g, p); subsequently, once the notion of its origin was lost, it survives as a second form of r, but continues to be found as a rule in union with round letters. The s likewise has a straight form and a round one, which is found frequently especially at the end of a word. The u may have an acute form (v), but the different spelling does not coincide with the difference in sound. The z is sometimes replaced in Italian manuscripts by the c caudata (ç) which seems to derive from a particular stroke of the z, with two arches of opposite direction, linked by a thin oblique line. The Gothic script also had its own majuscule alphabet (cf. table, no. 3), used especially for the initial letters of books and chapters. The abbreviations, particularly from the 14th century, become very numerous. From the study of the ligatures in various manuscripts of the 13th-15th centuries, Meyer sought to identify certain rules that concern mainly the overlapping of the right and left curves respectively of two letters that come to stand next to each other and the use of the "round" r (v. above); it must be borne in mind, however, that these are merely norms that admit very many exceptions.
III. THE GOTHIC CURSIVE
In Gothic writing the cursive form is clearly separate from the minuscule: it does not derive from it as the result of a freer stroke, but develops directly from the Carolingian, in the course of the 13th century, by increasing its linking strokes, enriching its ductus with flourishes, and noticeably shortening its time of execution. Gothic cursive already displays the characteristics of modern current writing: letters slanted to the left or, more often, to the right, continuous stroke throughout the whole extent of a word, linking also of the long strokes, upper and lower, which at first are angled in one direction or the other, or finally brought back to the point of origin after describing a loop that widens at the top or bottom and closes on the line.
It is a writing of common use (letters, drafts, registers) but is also widely employed in chanceries and is not foreign to book use. Here too there is a great variety of types, but in all of them certain fundamental characteristics are found, and above all the round appearance that Gothic cursive always preserves in contrast to the minuscule, inasmuch as certain breaks are not reconcilable with the requirement of a rapid and light execution. Widely used also for literary texts, especially in France, is the so-called bastarda, of chancery type, with a regular and slanted ductus, with the long lower stems much thickened at the point of origin and tapering at the bottom. With slight differences in stroke it is found also in Germany, in England, in Spain (bastardilla). The chancery minuscule is a very elegant round writing, in which especially the linking strokes are embellished in the curial manner: it originated in Italy and was used also for codices, especially in the vernacular; but it is above all characteristic of the pontifical chancery from the end of the 13th century throughout the 14th. From this derives, through a more rapid and more unassuming execution, the mercantile minuscule, proper to private deeds and account registers. As regards the individual letters (cf. table, no. 2) it will suffice to recall that the a never occurs in the uncial form as in the Gothic minuscule; the d is rarely straight, more often round, in two forms, that is with the stem which from its extreme point either bends back toward the right and closes on the ring with a thin oblique stroke (as in the chancery minuscule), or bends back directly onto the ring with a single elliptical stroke; the e often presents an open hook in place of the eye; the f descends - like the r, when it is not round, at the end of a word - below the line; the lower stroke of the g, instead of closing back to form a belly, not infrequently ends with a long horizontal flourish from right to left; m and n often have the last leg descending below the line; the n of acute form (at the beginning of a word) has the left stroke much higher and crowned by a flourish from left to right, while the right stroke often closes toward the inside.
IV. GOTHIC MINIATURE
When one speaks of Gothic miniature, one must naturally leave aside the illustration of 15th-century texts which, although in many cases written in Gothic script, are influenced in their decoration by Renaissance art: more properly one should speak of the miniature of the 12th-14th centuries, excluding however the Beneventan one (v.) which had a different origin and its own characteristics. In the critical examination of the decorative elements of the manuscript one must distinguish in this period, even more than in the Carolingian age and Ottonian, the purely ornamental motifs from the actual illustrations.
The former develop, especially in the 12th century, tendencies that were by then traditional, enriching the foliage ornament and the fantastic figurations around the initials: with the 13th century there emerges ever more clearly the tendency to embellish the pages also with marginal friezes (strips and geometric compositions in strong colours, or floral interlace) which find their best expression, with a different character, in the Bolognese legal texts and in the French "books of hours". The illustration, on the other hand, which often invades even the central part of the large initial letters, gradually frees itself from Byzantine influence and draws ever closer to the pictorial composition of canvases and frescoes, especially in the 14th century, when even the background definitively renounces conventional schemes and comes alive with the reconstruction of realistic landscapes and interiors. At times the figures, animated by a vividly human expression even though they have allegorical value, crowd together, completely submerging the background: the page then lights up in the contrast of the reds, blues and greens of the drapery, in the warmest tones, and only a faint architectural frieze or an alternation of small columns forms the schematic frame of the scene. We are in the period of the greatest splendour of miniature painting, which, even though it still turns by preference to sacred texts, completely abandons the hieratic character of the figure and illuminates the picture with all the lights, more or less strong, but always vivid, without dull tones, whether it draws inspiration from the compositions of the Sienese and Florentine painters, or repeats the motifs of the stained-glass windows in the Gothic cathedrals. Contributing to this direction is the fact that ornamentation, like script, is no longer by now the exclusive product of monastic centres, but becomes principally the expression of lay schools, of craftsmen working under the direction of a master who imposes a personal style on the work: Oderisi da Gubbio, celebrated by Dante, Niccolò di Giacomo, of the Bolognese school, Lorenzo Monaco, Florentine master, Giovannino de' Grassi and Belbello di Pavia, of the Lombard school; the Frenchmen Honoré, Jean Pucelle and the anonymous "Master of the Groves", the decorators of the Anglo-Saxon school of Norwich, no longer understand miniature painting as mere embellishment or as a minor art, but realize in it a mode of expression of the great art of painting, and the pages that came out of their workshops have nothing to envy in the most celebrated products of the 15th and 16th centuries. - See pl. LXXII.
Bibliography15 works
Alessandro Pratesi