Tuscan Letters.
Our take
Right, let's dive into this. Tere Schultz's exploration of Tuscan letters – those delightfully peculiar, often overlooked typographical flourishes – is precisely the kind of rabbit hole we at Spoot adore. It's not just about pretty shapes, you see. It’s about the persistent, almost subterranean, ways language and visual culture intertwine, mutate, and occasionally just… *squirt* at you with unexpected charm. Schultz’s work, as described, is a “literary and typographic divertimento,” and that's spot on. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to abandon your to-do list and start cataloging every decorative “A” you’ve ever encountered. It echoes the kind of obsessive detail we appreciate – the kind that led one of our writers down a significant tangent on Proto-Elamite in the Iranian Context (seriously, the connections are *there* if you squint). The sheer dedication to unearthing these specific, ornamental forms speaks to a broader hunger for understanding the granular history of communication—a history that’s so often smoothed over in favor of grand narratives of evolution. We’ve all felt that frustration, haven’t we? That frustrating plateau in language learning, where fluency feels just out of reach, as discussed in Hitting the plateau already A2 - B1. It’s the same principle: the real richness, the genuine understanding, lies in the minutiae.
The article's framing – a "prank of lapidary origin" – is particularly intriguing. It suggests a playful rebellion against the rigid rules of typography, a deliberate introduction of the whimsical into the world of letterforms. This isn’t about pure functionality; it’s about expression, personality, and a touch of delightful subversion. Think about it: the very act of crafting these letters, often by hand, involved a level of artistry that transcended mere legibility. It was an opportunity to inject character, to tell a story beyond the words themselves. And the reference to hollow feet and harlequin hats? That’s pure Spoot gold. It’s the kind of visual detail that sticks with you, hinting at a deeper, perhaps even theatrical, purpose. The description of them "without losing an iota of expressive power" is also key. These aren't mere decoration; they *communicate*. They evoke a specific mood, a particular time, a certain aesthetic sensibility. It’s a reminder that typography isn't just about conveying information; it’s about crafting an experience.
What’s truly compelling about this resurgence of interest in obscure typographic forms is that it challenges the prevailing trend towards minimalist, ultra-clean design. We’re surrounded by fonts that prioritize neutrality and universality, designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. But there’s a certain hollowness to that approach, isn’t there? A lack of soul. Tuscan letters, with their inherent eccentricity and handcrafted feel, offer a welcome antidote to this sterile aesthetic. It’s a return to a time when typography was seen as an art form, when letterforms were imbued with personality and meaning. And the way language acquisition can feel like a constant, shifting landscape, even when you feel fluent, as someone expressed in What do you call the proficiency level for a language you don't have technical vocab in but speak the most naturally? – it’s a similar feeling when you encounter a design element you’ve never consciously registered before, suddenly aware of its pervasive influence.
Ultimately, Schultz’s work highlights the importance of preserving and celebrating these forgotten corners of typographic history. It’s a call to look beyond the obvious, to appreciate the subtle nuances and unexpected delights that lie just beneath the surface. But here’s the question: as digital typography continues to evolve, will these ornamental forms find a new lease on life, or will they remain relegated to the dusty pages of historical texts? And, more importantly, will we, the ones who appreciate the squirt of a well-placed clamshell, continue to seek them out? Because if we don't pay attention, they’ll disappear, swallowed by the relentless tide of the new.
Another deep dive into an obscure region of typography, With hollow feet and harlequin hats: Tuscan letters, a prank of lapidary origin? (Second part):
Tere Schultz delivers a new literary and typographic divertimento for passionate readers. This time she follows one of her personal fixations: the Tuscan letters. Those ornamental objects, delicate or extravagant, that inhabit streets and typographic catalogs of all times, without losing an iota of expressive force. The product of decorative ingenuity, Tuscan vernaculars dress the street signs of Mexico as much as the stained glass windows of Paris, the ‘fileteado porteño’ of Buenos Aires signs or the hulls of fishing boats in the Amazon waters. However, this decorative ubiquity, notorious and implausible, alarms many. Fortunately, like a healing balm, Schultz will deploy here her original hypothesis, suspiciously unexplored, of how the Tuscan style would have been born from a mischievous interpretation of the stone inscriptions (wrongly) called lapidary. Although perhaps here the term ‘lapidary’ is appropriate, since the idea caught the author strolling through a cemetery. (Warning: sensitive material. Agnostic typographers and designers of little faith, please refrain).
Here’s a definition:
Basically, a typeface is considered Tuscan when its serifs are bi- or tri-furcated (sometimes with a greater number of extensions) to achieve a certain degree of fantasy or ornamentation. The examples are infinite since, apart from the terminals, all the other elements of the anatomy of a letter can vary: the strokes contrast, the ratio of proportions, the absence / presence of diamonds and other elements within the strokes, shadows, textures and other external additions.
And here’s a discussion of the name:
No one knows for sure the origin of the term Tuscan in typography. Nicolete Gray, a passionate researcher of decorative lettering, suggests that it may have been invented by Victorian type founders, there being no historical trace of such a designation [1]. Remember that Tuscan, the cultured and literary language of Alighieri, Boccaccio and Petrarch, is the one that eventually prevailed over the other dialects of northern Italy, and it is therefore likely that ‘Tuscan’ was a generic name given to everything that was believed to come from that region. [2]
On the other hand, Tuscan is only a name. We do not know with historical rigour whether it is legitimate to call it Tuscan or whether the style would have been born in Tuscany, although we could well imagine that, northern Italy having been for so long the fundamental source of all artistic novelty, in the eyes of the rest of the continent, it is likely that any innovation devoid of name or place of origin would be called Italian or Tuscan. We already know that all roads lead to Rome (or Florence) and that the traces of the Roman Empire throughout its territory are still warm.
If that sounds appealing, click on through for much more, with glorious illustrations and (in the second part) examples localized to Paris, Mexico, Buenos Aires, and Brazil; having been for a while a porteño myself, I will quote that section:
Caminito, the famous tourist promenade in the La Boca neighborhood, south of the city of Buenos Aires, adopted what is called fileteado porteño, a technique that exists in other popular cultures but here with very own characteristics. There is also a series of historical signs in the mosaic technique, of great subtlety, to recall significant figures of the culture.
The images make me intensely nostalgic. And the word fileteado is “From Spanish fileteado, ultimately from Latin filum (‘thread’), referring to fine painted lines.”
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