The Name Gothic Script
The term Gothic was first used to describe this script in 15th-century Italy, in the midst of the Renaissance, because Renaissance Humanists believed it was barbaric. Gothic was a synonym for barbaric. Flavio Biondo, in Italia Illustrata (1531) thought it was invented by the Lombards after their invasion of Italy in the 6th century.
Not only were black-letter forms called Gothic script, but any other seemingly barbarian script, such as Visigothic, Beneventan, and Merovingian, were also labeled "Gothic", in contrast to Carolingian minuscule, a highly legible script which the Humanists called littera antiqua, "the ancient letter", wrongly believing that it was the script used by the Romans. It was invented in the reign of Charlemagne, although only used significantly after that era.
The black letter must not be confused either with the ancient alphabet of the Gothic language, nor with the sans-serif typefaces that are also sometimes called Gothic.
Read more about this topic: Old English Text
Famous quotes containing the word script:
“Take what the old-church
found in Mithra’s tomb,
candle and script and bell,
take what the new-church spat upon
and broke and shattered.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)