Back to Chancery

Like most busy men of affairs, Banker Aubrey West of London never worried much about the illegible scratches and scrawls of his careless handwriting. Then, one day in 1950, while browsing at his club, he happened to spot a book containing examples of Renaissance calligraphy. One sample that caught his eye was that of Ludovico degli Arrighi, a 16th Century Vatican scribe who wrote thus :

"The sight of this handsome and practical hand," says West, "came as a revelation . . . [and I] thought how wonderful it would be if people wrote like that nowadays." Last week, to help people write like that, West published a small history of calligraphy (Written by Hand; Allen & Unwin; 7s.3d.), with more than a score of models, past & present, for readers to copy from.

One of the earliest examples of good handwriting, says West, goes back to the days of Charlemagne, when Alcuin of York and his scribes turned out a neat and stubby cursive called Caroline minuscule:

Soon this sort of writing spread all over Western Europe, and it was not until the 12th Century that the arched and spired letters of Gothic script began to replace it. Minuscule never vanished entirely. In time, Gothic became so intricate that papal bulls were almost illegible, and each was usually sent out from the Vatican chancery accompanied by a duplicate written in another hand. The writing used for the translation was merely a variation on the Carolingian theme--the slanting chancery calligraphy of men like Ludovico degli Arrighi.

In Aubrey West's opinion, the world has never done better than chancery. Today there is a solid group of distinguished Britons who want to return to it. Under the leadership of such enthusiasts as Sir Sydney Cockerell, former director of Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam Museum, and Lord Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley), Lord Great Chamberlain for Edward VIII, West believes that Britons may soon be writing a fine Italian hand once again. Among the modern models they could imitate:

Lord Cholmondeley, who once wrote like this:

and, after his calligraphic reform, writes like this:

or the author himself:

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