Penmanship of the XVI, XVII, and XVIIIth Centuries. A series of typical examples from English and foreign writing books selected by Lewis F. Day. London: B. T. Batsford. [No date, but from the printing style about 1900. Misdated as 1789 by the librarian, because that is the date of the example in the frontispiece.]
Lo presente libro insegna la vera arte de lo excellente scriuere de diuerse varie sorti de litere le quali se fano per geometrica ragione. & con la presente opera ognuno le potra stampare e impochi giorni per lo amaistramento, ragione, & essempli, come qui sequente vederai. [Giovanniantonio Tagliente.] 1547. —Examples of all sorts of elegant writing, from simple and legible chancery script to swooshing flourishes that seem meant to conceal rather than ornament the letters. Many complete alphabets.
Arte subtilissima, por la qual se enseña a escreuir perfectamente. Hecho y experimentado, y agora de nuevo añadido por Iuan de Yciar Vizcayno. Año 1553. —A marvelous collection of engraved plates by Juan de Icíar (as the librarian spells his name) showing various styles of elegant penmanship.
Exemplaire pour bien et proprement escrire la lettre française. Contenant plusieurs beaux quatrains composés, la plus part, par un grand personnage de ce siècle à l'imitation de Phocylide et autres anciens doctes grecs. Avec les premières et principales reigles d'arithmétique. Livre premier. A Lyon. Par Antoine Gryphius. 1579. —Includes a very useful printed alphabet with ligatures and abbreviations, as well as quatrains (typeset to resemble contemporary handwriting) to copy on the ruled paper provided.
[Examples of the chancery hand, engraved]. Title page missing; credited by the librarian to Scipione Leone, Giovanni Paolo Biancho, and Paolo de Enocho, 1598. —Beautiful sixteenth-century scripts, with example alphabets and exercises.
Deliciae Variarum insigniumque scripturarum, Autor Joanne Veldio [Jan van de Velde], scriptore celeberrimo. Ghedruckt t’Amsterdam bÿ Willem Jansz., 1604-1605. —Mottoes in various languages, French the most common, with increasingly elaborate flourishes.