In the typeface design class I took at Carnegie Mellon, we created revivals of type from books in the CMU Library’s Rare Book collection. The book I selected was Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, written by Francesco Colonna and published by Aldus Manutius in 1499.
Cosmodoxia is a variable font that comes in nine weights and two styles. Because the original source material does not include italics, the italic design is referenced from a later Aldus Manutius book.
The name “Cosmodoxia” comes from Hypnerotomachia. The book is written in a strange Latin-Italian hybrid. As far as I can tell, “Cosmodoxia” is not a real word, but likely would mean something related to “knowledge of the cosmos.” Fitting for the starry punctuation the original typeface had (and the stylistic set in Cosmodoxia that includes them)!
Here’s some of the metrical and proportional research I did before starting to design characters.
© 2024 Ellis Carson Jones
Website set in Cosmodoxia Variable from Prologue Type.
