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28-559: The codex, consisting of 907 leaves, is written in the Byzantine-Ravenna uncials characteristic of Constantinople , but which has recently been recognized in legal and literary texts produced in Alexandria and the Levant as well. E.A. Lowe refers to this script as "b-r uncial". Upon closer examination, the manuscript is believed to have been created between the official issuance in 533 and

56-483: A cut-down version of uncial in the famous Codex Basilicanus of Hilary , which contains sections in each of the two types of script. The terminology was continued in the mid-18th century by René Prosper Tassin and Charles François Toustain . Despite the common and well-fixed usage, half-uncial is a poor name to the extent that it suggests some organic debt to regular uncial, though both types share features inherited from their ancient source, capitalis rustica . It

84-465: A form of evolved Latin-based uncial hand that would probably be best compared to the later 7th to 10th century examples, though admittedly, the variations in Latin uncial are much wider and less rigid than Greek. Modern uncial has borrowed heavily from some of the conventions found in more cursive scripts, using flourishes, variable width strokes, and on occasion, even center axis tilt. In a way comparable to

112-551: A reliable edition of the Littera Florentina was finally made available. Nowadays, two facsimile editions are available for scholars to study. The manuscript's significance lies in the fact that it is an almost unique witness of the original Justinianian Digest. Most medieval manuscripts of the Digest contain substantially different texts. The sudden reappearance of the manuscript in the late eleventh or early twelfth century has been

140-568: Is insular , not uncial. Uncial Greek (commonly called "Byzantine lettering" by Greeks themselves) is commonly used by the Greek Orthodox Church and various institutions and individuals in Greece to this day. The Modern Greek State has also used uncial script on several occasions in official capacity (such as on seals, government documents, etc.) as did many of the Greek provisional governments during

168-491: Is also sometimes used to refer to manuscripts that have been scribed in uncial, especially when differentiating from those penned with minuscule. Some of the most noteworthy Greek uncials are: The Petropolitanus is considered by some to contain optimum uncial style. It is also an example of how large the characters were getting. For further details on these manuscripts, see Guglielmo Cavallo Ricerche sulla Maiuscola Biblica (Florence, 1967). Modern calligraphy usually teaches

196-747: Is also true of other scripts written in Ireland and England). Letters following a large initial at the start of a paragraph or section often gradually diminish in size as they are written across a line or a page, until the normal size is reached, which is called a "diminuendo" effect, and is a distinctive Insular innovation, which later influenced Continental illumination style. Letters with ascenders ( b , d , h , l , etc.) are written with triangular or wedge-shaped tops. The bows of letters such as b , d , p , and q are very wide. The script uses many ligatures and has many unique scribal abbreviations , along with many borrowings from Tironian notes . Insular script

224-419: Is possible that Jerome was punning on this; he may conceivably also have been playing with the other meaning of codex , "block of wood". The term uncial in the sense of describing this script was first used by Jean Mabillon in the early 18th century. Thereafter his definition was refined by Scipione Maffei , who used it to refer to this script as distinct from Roman square capitals . The word, uncial ,

252-531: Is some doubt about the original meaning of the word. Uncial itself probably comes from St. Jerome 's preface to the Book of Job , where it is found in the form uncialibus , but it is possible that this is a misreading of inicialibus (though this makes little sense in the context), and Jerome may have been referring to the larger initial letters found at the beginning of paragraphs. In classical Latin uncialis could mean both "inch-high" and "weighing an ounce", and it

280-576: Is used to refer to a diverse family of scripts used for different functions. At the top of the hierarchy was the Insular half-uncial (or "Insular majuscule "), used for important documents and sacred text. The full uncial , in a version called "English uncial", was used in some English centres. Then "in descending order of formality and increased speed of writing" came "set minuscule ", "cursive minuscule" and "current minuscule". These were used for non-scriptural texts, letters, accounting records, notes, and all

308-706: The Greek War of Independence . The height of uncial usage by the Modern Greek State was during the Greek military junta of 1967–74 , when even Greek Drachma coins had uncial lettering on them. Since the Metapolitefsi , the Greek State has stopped using uncial script. The term half-uncial or semi-uncial was first deployed by Scipione Maffei , Istoria diplomatica (Mantua, 1727); he used it to distinguish what seemed like

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336-813: The Lindisfarne Gospels . Insular script was used not only for Latin religious books, but also for every other kind of book, including vernacular works. Examples include the Book of Kells , the Cathach of St. Columba , the Ambrosiana Orosius , the Durham Gospel Fragment , the Book of Durrow , the Durham Gospels , the Echternach Gospels , the Lindisfarne Gospels , the Lichfield Gospels ,

364-614: The St. Gall Gospel Book , and the Book of Armagh . Insular script was influential in the development of Carolingian minuscule in the scriptoria of the Carolingian empire. In Ireland, Insular script was superseded in c.  850 by Late Insular script; in England, it was followed by a form of Caroline minuscule . The Tironian et , ⟨⁊⟩  – equivalent of ampersand ⟨&⟩  –

392-537: The 12th century. Consequently, during the Middle Ages, the codex was known as the Littera Pisana. Later, as part of the war booty taken from Pisa to Florence after the war of 1406, the codex became part of Florence's collection. The manuscript became one of Florence's most treasured possessions, and it was only shown to very important individuals. Scholarly access was difficult. It took more than three centuries before

420-679: The 20th century. In general, there are some common features of uncial script: In later uncial scripts, the letters are sometimes drawn haphazardly; for example, ⟨ll⟩ runs together at the baseline, bows (for example in ⟨b⟩ , ⟨p⟩ , ⟨r⟩ ) do not entirely curve in to touch their stems, and the script is generally not written as cleanly as previously. Due to its extremely widespread use, in Byzantine , African , Italian , French , Spanish , and "insular" ( Irish , Welsh , and English ) centres, there were many slightly different styles in use: There

448-429: The 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes . Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin , as well as Gothic , and are the current style for Coptic and Nobiin . Early uncial script most likely developed from late rustic capitals . Early forms are characterized by broad single-stroke letters using simple round forms taking advantage of the new parchment and vellum surfaces, as opposed to

476-475: The angular, multiple-stroke letters, which are more suited for rougher surfaces, such as papyrus . In the oldest examples of uncial, such as the fragment of De bellis macedonicis in the British Library , of the late 1st–early 2nd centuries, all of the letters are disconnected from one another, and word separation is typically not used. Word separation, however, is characteristic of later uncial usage. As

504-565: The basis for these simplified, smaller scripts. There are over 500 surviving copies of uncial script; by far the larger number of these predate the Carolingian Renaissance . Uncial was still used, particularly for copies of the Bible , until around the 10th century outside of Ireland . The insular variant of uncial remained the standard script used to write the Irish language until the middle of

532-456: The continued widespread use of the blackletter typefaces for written German until well into the 20th century, Gaelic letterforms, which are similar to uncial letterforms, were conventionally used for typography in Irish until the 1950s. The script is still widely used in this way for titles of documents, inscriptions on monuments, and other 'official' uses. Strictly speaking, the Gaelic script

560-487: The full alphabet correctly, a suitable display font should be chosen. To display the specialist characters, there are several fonts that may be used; three free ones that support these characters are Junicode , Montagel, and Quivira. Gentium and Charis SIL support the alphabetic letters (U+A77x and U+A78x). According to Michael Everson , in the 2006 Unicode proposal for these characters: To write text in an ordinary Gaelic font , only ASCII letters should be used,

588-671: The issuance of 557, which included Justinian's recent enactments known as the Novellae Constitutiones or "New Constitutions", making it an all-but contemporary and all-but official source. Marginal notes suggest that the codex was in Amalfi , which was part of the Byzantine territory in Italy governed by the Exarchate of Ravenna in the 6th century. It is believed to have then passed to Pisa in

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616-541: The other types of written documents. The scripts developed in Ireland in the 7th century and were used as late as the 19th century, though its most flourishing period fell between 600 and 850. They were closely related to the uncial and half-uncial scripts, their immediate influences; the highest grade of Insular script is the majuscule Insular half-uncial, which is closely derived from Continental half-uncial script. Works written in Insular scripts commonly use large initial letters surrounded by red ink dots (although this

644-431: The script evolved over the centuries, the characters became more complex. Specifically, around AD 600, flourishes and exaggerations of the basic strokes began to appear in more manuscripts. Ascenders and descenders were the first major alterations, followed by twists of the tool in the basic stroke and overlapping. By the time the more compact minuscule scripts arose circa AD 800, some of the evolved uncial styles formed

672-475: The subject of much debate among legal historians. Enrico Spagnesi, Le Pandette di Giustiniano: storia e fortuna della 'Littera Florentina': mostra di codici documenti, (exhibition catalogue) June-August 1983 (Florence: Olschki) 1983. Bernardo Moraes, Manual de Introdução ao Digesto , São Paulo, YK Editora, 2017. ISBN   978-85-68215-22-7 Uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from

700-834: Was brought to Ireland in the 5th century, and from there to England in the 7th century . In England, it was used to create the Old English Latin alphabet in the 8th century. Insular script Insular script is a medieval script system originating in Ireland that spread to England and continental Europe under the influence of Irish Christianity . Irish missionaries took the script to continental Europe, where they founded monasteries, such as Bobbio . The scripts were also used in monasteries, like Fulda , which were influenced by English missionaries. They are associated with Insular art , of which most surviving examples are illuminated manuscripts . It greatly influenced modern Gaelic type and handwriting. The term "Insular script"

728-541: Was first used around the 3rd century (if we don't consider its earliest example a transitional variant of the rustic script, as Leonard Boyle did) and remained in use until the end of the 8th century. The early forms of half-uncial were used for pagan authors and Roman legal writing, while in the 6th century the script came to be used in Africa and Europe (but not as often in insular centres) to transcribe Christian texts. Some general forms of half-uncial letters are: Half-uncial

756-599: Was in widespread use in the script (meaning agus 'and' in Irish, and ond 'and' in Old English ) and is occasionally continued in modern Gaelic typefaces derived from Insular script. Unicode treats representation of letters of the Latin alphabet written in insular script as a typeface choice that needs no separate coding. Only a few Insular letters have specific code-points because they are used by phonetic specialists. To render

784-545: Was spread to England by the Hiberno-Scottish mission ; previously, uncial script had been brought to England by Augustine of Canterbury . The influences of both scripts produced the Insular script system. Within this system, the palaeographer Julian Brown identified five grades, with decreasing formality: Brown has also postulated two phases of development for this script, Phase II being mainly influenced by Roman uncial examples, developed at Wearmouth-Jarrow and typified by

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