The Meisterstück 149 Calligraphy Appreciation Thread

January 13

Here, together with my old OMAS Gentlemen, Montblanc Calligraphy flexible does the first calligraphy exercises of 2025. The orange characters are written with the OMAS and the yu-yake ink by Iroshizuku. The brown ink is Diamine Golden Brown, a color that I find extraordinary.

January 13

Beautiful writing and I love the ink you have chosen.

This Omas Gentleman pen looks like a great writer.

I have good collection of Vintage pens now, but I don't have any of Omas or any of Italian pens. I don't know why. I must think of having at least few good Flexible Italians Vintages.

January 17

Hope this is okay to post. I just saw that Izod pens in the UK is selling a 149 calligraphy. If you've been looking for one, it's here. Not my listing/not associated with them.

January 19

A few years ago there was an online auction of mostly niks and paper from bankrupt la couronne du conté. There was leichturm, midori, rhodia, lallo, rhodia etc.

there weren’t many buyers

so I ended with 7 Lots in the end . I managed to resell half of it to my local paperstore. I only kept rhodia, leichturm and clairefontaine which are good to excellent allrounders. The other brandstof need more attention in use.
there is enough stuff for the next 20 years.

January 29

Two sisters, with greatly different character...

February 2

When it comes to playing with calligraphy, the pen I use the most is the 149 Calligraphy Flexible. I have explained the reasons for this preference in many other posts, but to recap them essentially, the Meisterstück 149 is ergonomically my favorite pen (for me, better than the Hemingway, in turn based on the 139, which are shorter pens) and the Calligraphy nib has for me a ductility and ease of use that I do not find in other pens with an extra-fine tip suitable for calligraphy. The 149 Calligraphy Flexible was a special edition (not limited) launched by Montblanc in the second half of 2019, and I bought mine in the store in March 2020, just a couple of days before the government forced us to stay home due to Covid. Since then, now almost five years ago, it has undoubtedly been the pen I have used the most: it is always inked and always in use. It is a 149 with a regular body, but with an Abarth engine.

For our wedding anniversary last year, in September, my wife gave me another 149 in a special edition, the celebratory model of the Meisterstück line, which Montblanc has named "The Origin". It is, aesthetically, the most "deviant" of the 149s: with a slightly marbled black cap and a large metal dome, an arched clip ending in a ball, and a filling cone also in metal. In the 149 “The Origin”, the nibs (the medium one that comes with it can be exchanged for one of the other eight variations free of charge) are standard, even if engraved with the anniversary motif, while its uniqueness is given by a body that seems to have been designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

For some time now, therefore, I have been enjoying mixing the lines of my two special edition Meisterstück nibs in calligraphic games in which one produces a kind of calligraphy style that is typical of the pointed nib and the other instead produces scripts that require a truncated nib, often more modern if not contemporary. I propose here an example, which comes from a beautiful Virgilian oration taken from the tenth book of the Aeneid (verses 467-468), the original written with the 149 Calligraphy Flexible and Alt Goldgrün ink from Rohrer & Klingner, and the translations using the 149 The Origin with Midnight Blue ink from Montblanc. The signature of Publius Vergilius Maro was written with the medium nib of a Graf von Faber Castell Guilloché Cognac, using the ink of the same name and from the same house.

And now a note on photography, for the many users of this forum who are also passionate about "writing with light". The first photograph was taken towards evening, with the camera mounted very high on the tripod. Sensor exposure at 100 ISO for three seconds at f/16. I like how the image captures the soft, faint light of dusk. So far, technically, nothing special. But the two photographs that follow were taken with the Hasselblad 501CM freehand! Here the Planar lens (80 mm f/2.8) was stopped to f/8.5 (and for this reason the depth of field is less), but the sensor set to 6400 ISO allowed me to shoot with a time of 1/125', so that the image was not blurry.

Obviously, there is much more "noise" in the image, but being able to shoot freehand, with this definition, in low light, with a medium format camera, seems like heaven to me!

Happy Sunday.

February 5

There are only nine days left to celebrate Valentine's Day with something all your own. It's time to write a love letter, or a poem, or even just copy one that seems suitable for the purpose, to give to your Valentine on the 14th.

Try with a large sheet of paper, written by you, with your hands and your pens, with plenty of empty space on which to place your little Valentine's gift. I'm sure that your sheet of paper will be appreciated as much or more than the gift.

I took from an Italian Renaissance writer, Pietro Bembo. Later, with a different handwriting and in another color, I will write the dedication and the date.

There are still a few days to buy the paper and choose the writing and show your love.

Saturday at 10:45 PM

In a photograph dominated by texts written with the blunt nib of my 149 The Origin, I couldn't resist adding a line with the flexible Calligraphy guide. Facile est inventis addere, "it's easy to add something to someone else's inventions".

The two cards in the photo are produced by Amatruda in Amalfi: it is a paper "hard" as stone, but it also gives the impression that what is written on it will last as if it were engraved in stone.

Around 1220, the Roman Emperor Frederick II prohibited the use of charta bambagina (Amalfi paper) in official documents, preferring parchment, considered more durable. Despite the fears that led to the ban on its use, ancient sheets of Amalfi paper have been preserved after about six centuries, reporting documents at least from the 15th century.

Saturday at 11:57 PM

Do you know where the saying comes from?

I'm curious about which came first:

He who writes reads twice

Or

He who sings prays twice.

The singing saying comes from Augustine (I think)

Sunday at 05:15 AM

@Uncial, as for the Latin saying "Qui scribit, bis legit", I have not been able to find a reliable source attributing its authorship, although everything seems to indicate that it is an ancient adage.

"Qui cantat, bis orat" (He who sings prays twice) is frequently attributed to Augustine of Hippo, but the Punic philosopher (born in present-day Algeria) never wrote these words, although his commentary on Psalm 73 may have been the source: "Qui enim cantat laudem, non solo laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat: qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat" (For he that sings praise, not only praises, but also praises with gladness; he that sings praise, not only sings, but also loves him of whom he sings) (Enarratio in psalmum LXXIII, 1). For this reason it is likely that the saying is later than the Augustinian age, of the fifth century or later.

The adagio, in its variant "Qui canit, bis orat" is included in the chapter of "Cantus et musica" in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2.1.2.1.2.§1157).