Civilité type is a typeface

Typeface

In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....

 invented in 1557 by the French engraver Robert Granjon. These characters imitate French cursive

Cursive script

Cursive script may refer to* Cursive, handwriting styles* Roman cursive script, a style of Latin calligraphy.* Hebrew cursive script, a style of Hebrew calligraphy.* East Asian cursive script, a style of Chinese calligraphy....

 gothic

Gothic alphabet

The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet for writing the Gothic language, created in the 4th century by Ulfilas for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible....

 letters of the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

.

History

The first book in the new type was Dialogue de la vie et de la mort, a French version of Innocenzo Ringhieri's dialogue, in the dedication of which Granjon explains his purpose in cutting the new design. He calls the typeface "lettres françaises" and suggests that France like other nations should have a type based on the national hand; his model was contemporary handwriting. The popular name for the type came from the titles of two early books in which it was used: Erasmus's La Civilité puerile, Jean Bellère, Antwerp, 1559, and La Civile honesteté pour les enfans, R. Breton, Paris, 1560. "Civilité" meant "good manners" and it was thought an advantage that children should learn to read from a book printed in a book printed in a type resembling current handwriting. Between 1557 and 1562 Granjon printed some 20 books in this type. Two other Paris printers had typefaces made that were very similar and Granjon himself supplied his version to Guillaume Silvius and to Christophe Plantin at Antwerp.

They were mostly employed to print books in Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

, Holland, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. In the latter, they were used until the second half of the 19th century to print children's lesson-books teaching civility and manners from which the type got its name. Civilité type did not win great popularity in France although used occasionally at all periods. Another version of civilité were used in one book printed in 1597 by Claude Micard, and two others in two books printed by Jean de Tournes in 1581 and 1598. In the mid 19th century Louis Perrin of Lyons printed J. Soulary's Sonnets humouristiques in civilité. Granjon's experiment cannot be said to have been a success: one of the grave disadvantages was that many ligatures were required and some letters had more than one variant.