Ancient Greek Calligraphic Fonts?

[Titanic9990]

I'm taking an ancient greek class next year in highschool (to go along with latin, being that i hope to major in history and minor in classics) and calligraphy fascinates me. I found a nice "music nib" dip pen at a local antique store and have been practicing, but I want to find a nice ancient greek font so that I can use my future greek skills to deck my room out with handwritten greek poetry - anyone know of any resources that could help with greek calligraphy? :hmm1:

[gguthrie]

I assume you are talking about Classical Greek, rather than Koine (biblical) Greek. If so, take a look at http://www.textkit.com/ or you can see resources for both Classical and Koine here: http://www.greek-language.com/Learn-Greek-2.html

 

Hope this helps.

 

George

[tuintu]

i study Classics in university (Ancient Greek along with Latin) but i've never noticed Greek calligraphy

 

i think the reason is we mainly learn grammar and fonetics etc..

 

thank you for this thread! i'll follow here and maybe i discover somethings about Greek Calligraphy...

[Dueller]

Try This.

There is a download now link about halfway down on the left of the page. I have no idea what they are like but you should be able to print out the fonts in "word" etc.

 

http://wareseeker.com/Graphic-Apps/macedonia-1.zip/3b49a0c706

 

Or enter google images and type in ancient greek fonts and open any link you like the look of. It's actually my favorite way of finding things on the net.

Edited March 20, 2011 by Dueller

[Italicist]

Here's a chart that might be of some use to you, written by one Michael Covington, who has kindly seen fit to allow it to be reproduced freely for non-commercial educational purposes. It isn't a formal calligraphic Greek alphabet, but an everyday Greek script based loosely on principles underlying various italic hands.

 

Covington's Greek alphabet

 

 

Best wishes with Greek!

 

- Italicist

 

[Samthor]

Here's a link to a topic on a typography discussion site. It has several interesting examples. Typophile link

If you want to find more examples, you might like to poke around in the British Library's online manuscript archive. They are still digitizing their holdings, but there's a great deal to be seen already, including both uncial (slightly cursive capitals) and the faster, more stylized medieval miniscule (the lowercase that developed into the current way of printing ancient Greek texts). The older script exists, too, both in scraps of papyrus and on monuments and other stone carvings. Perhaps someone else can recommend an online image database for older texts than the British Library's. In my small experience, the stone scratchings aren't so kala, though.

 

Personally, I'd love so see a posting of any Greek script you come up with. Anyone else want to share?

Samthor

Edited March 24, 2011 by Samthor

[JustinJ]

I am going to give you a suggestion on learning Greek. The best thing that you can do is learn Greek on your own before classes start.

 

Before I took second year Greek, I studied during the summer for the class. Once class started, I had a very easy two semesters and could focus on reading the Greek literature and topics that I wanted to explore. The class was easy and it also helped reinforced the language for me by attending the class.

 

I took Greek before the Internet was big. Now, there are so many study groups and books on Greek that is rather easy to teach yourself. Someone mentioned Textkit.com, which has many new learners on it.

 

Good luck with your studies

Edited March 24, 2011 by JustinJ

[Titanic9990]

As it turns out, due to an apparent lack of interest in the subject, it was cancelled as a class for my Junior year. However it is being reinitiated my Senior year, and until then I am as I call it, "rage studying" out of anger. I have come to develop my own style of Greek calligraphy. So the situation is bittersweet.

Edited April 23, 2011 by Titanic9990

[Chevalier]

Aw, almost the same happened to me, when I was at your age. This really sucks.

[kopio]

I would suggest simply looking at some very old manuscripts such as Codex Sinaiticus or Codex Vaticanus.

 

These are both two of the most renowned Koine Greek manuscripts and you can find images of them quite easily.

 

Note that both of these texts are uncial texts (all capitol letters) and they are also written in scripta continua (no spaces between the letters for the most part). Quite honestly the font isn't really fancy, it is really utilitarian. They were written to be read and read easily. I have attached an image of Sinaiticus for you to take a peek at it is John Chapter 1....

[mac47]

Titanic, I don't read FPN as often as I ought to, because it can be a bit overwhelming in its daily volume. So I just got around to noticing your original question. I think I might have some answers for you:

 

I have blogged a little bit on Greek fonts and the history of Greek handwriting and printing. You may want to check out some of my entries:

 

A brief history of Greek handwriting and printing.

 

The calligraphy of 17th century court scribe Georg Bocskay, from the Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta:

 

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k408/mattcolvin47/Greek%20Typography/Bokskaygreekminusculescript1.jpg

 

The best Greek fonts I've found are from the Anagrafi electronic foundry. They include some versions of the Grecs du Roi.

 

The most famous Greek calligrapher was the 15th century scribe Ange Vergece (Vergetius), from the island of Crete. The Bibliotheque St. Genevieve in Paris has kindly put online the pages of his handwritten copy of Manuel Philes' _De Natura Animalium_. 

 

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k408/mattcolvin47/Greek%20Typography/Vergcefish.jpg

 

Vergece can be quite illegible because until the 18th century, Greek handwriting and the fonts based on it were a tangle of ligatures. The great typographer Claude Garamond cut the Grecs du Roi using Vergece's handwriting as a model. Here's what it looks like:

 

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k408/mattcolvin47/Greek%20Typography/GrecsduRoicloseup.gif

 

My default Greek handwriting is based on Porson and Vusillus (Oxford and Teubner fonts, respectively). But lately I have tried my hand at some of the ligatures of the Grecs du Roi:

 

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k408/mattcolvin47/Greek%20Typography/ProvXV1smaler.jpg

 

Best regards,

Matt Colvin

(PhD in Greek and Latin Lit, Cornell 2004)

[Titanic9990]

Sorry for not responding to many of these posts- I was not aware that so many people were still responding! I have been stunned by the response to my question! I'm going to be working on my Greek today so I'll have some pics posted soon. I just wanted to thank you all for showing interest in my post, at first I thought this would yield no results but I stand happily corrected!