Bembo
Bembo      Bembo Alt      Bembo Expert      Bembo Small Caps & Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Italic      Bembo Alt Italic      Bembo Italic Expert      Bembo Italic Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Semibold      Bembo Alt Semi Bold      Bembo Semibold Expert      Bembo Semibold Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Semibold Italic      Bembo Alt Semi Bold Italic      Bembo Semibold Italic Expert      Bembo Semibold Italic Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Bold      Bembo Alt Bold      Bembo Bold Expert      Bembo Bold Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Bold Italic      Bembo Alt Bold Italic      Bembo Bold Italic Expert      Bembo Bold Italic Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Extra Bold      Bembo Alt Extra Bold      Bembo Extra Bold Expert      Bembo Extra Bold Oldstyle Figures      Bembo Extra Bold Italic      Bembo Extra Bold Italic Expert      Bembo Extra Bold Italic Oldstyle Figures

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Design Credits

First seen on MyFonts: April 10th, 2002
Designed by: Stanley Morison, Francesco Griffo, Giovanni Antonio Tagliente, Aldus Manutius
Designed when: 1929
Letterform design based on: Bembo
Contained in Categories: Garalde, Legible
Design owned by: Monotype Imaging
Originally created by: Monotype
MyFonts Keywords: none

Bembo

Stanley Morison’s reworking for the Monotype Corporation of Griffo’s seminal design, first used in Cardinal Bembo’s De Aetna. A copy of this book, introduced into France, served as a model in 1531 for Garamond and his associates’ romans and, through them, the development of the roman letter through the centuries that followed. We can credit to this design the cool formality of our roman typography, as contrasted to the calligraphic warmth and informality of Arabic and Indian scripts.

Bembo

The origin of Bembo goes back to one of the most famous printers of the Renaissance, Aldus Manutius. In 1496 he used a new weight of a roman face, formed by Francesco Griffo da Bologna, to print the short piece De Aetna, by Pietro Bembo. This very typeface would eventually be of such importance that the development of print typefaces is unthinkable without it. The first developmental phase was defined by the influence of the classic Roman forms, indentifiable by the slight slant of the lower case s and the high crossbar of the lower case e, which in time took on less and less of a slant.

The Monotype Corporation in London used this roman face as the model for a 1929 project of Stanley Morison which resulted in a typeface called Bembo. Morison made a number of changes to the 15th century forms. He modified the capital G and instead of the italic which Manutius originally had in mind, he used that from a sample book written in 1524 by Giovanni Tagliente in Venice. Italic capitals came from the roman forms.

Bembo is an old face type of unusual legibility. Its timeless classical character makes it suitable for almost any application.

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Related Links

 • MIT Press: Hypnerotomachia Poliphili facsimile (English)
 • Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich: Bembo's Zoo (English)

‘Bembo’ is a Trademark of Monotype Typography.

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