Beneventan Calligraphy

Southern Italian-style

What you'll learn
Master the technical aspects of Beneventan calligraphy (letter-height, pen-angle …)
Write all 26 letters and more than a dozen ligatured letters, Beneventan-style
Benefit from the meditative and relaxing aspects of calligraphy
Create a two-coloured sampler with the Beneventan letters
Address an envelope using Beneventan calligraphy
Requirements
Some knowledge of calligraphy is recommended.
You'll need a 3 mm broad nib in order to use the documents provided in the course.
Description
Beneventan (pronounced benny - ven - tan) calligraphy was developed in the the Monte Cassino abbey, to the southeast of Rome. It’s not one of the most renown styles of calligraphy, but it’s very unique and lovely to write. There are numerous letterforms that you won’t find in any other script.  That's one of the most appealing aspects of this style of calligraphy: the fact that it’s quite unusual, very appealing to the eye and … sometimes downright difficult to decipher !This class will begin with some historical background. Following that, we’ll do some exercises to understand the bases of Beneventan letter formation before going on to study each letter individually. One of the particularities of Beneventan is that there are quite a number of ligatures - so we’ll take a look at those, too.There are several projects for you to do, too, including a sampler that contains a message, an enveloppe to address and a sentence to write, superposed on the word “love”.This class will appeal to you if you’ve already done some calligraphy. You don’t need to be an expert by any means, but you should have a grasp of basic letter formation. It’s been designed for a 3mm broad nib, so make sure you have one of those on hand.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 2 A bit of history

Lecture 3 Tools & Supplies

Lecture 4 Getting your ink to flow

Section 2: Let's start with some exercises

Lecture 5 Exercises 1

Lecture 6 Exercises 2

Lecture 7 Exercises 3

Lecture 8 Exercises 4

Lecture 9 Exercises 5

Lecture 10 Exercises 6

Lecture 11 Exercises 7 and 8

Lecture 12 Exercises 9

Section 3: Letters

Lecture 13 i, n, m

Lecture 14 v, w, y

Lecture 15 u

Lecture 16 l

Lecture 17 b, k, h

Lecture 18 s, f, r

Lecture 19 j, p

Lecture 20 o, c, q

Lecture 21 g, a, e

Lecture 22 t

Lecture 23 d, x, z, s final

Section 4: Ligatures

Lecture 24 What you should know about ligatures

Lecture 25 em, ei, est, et

Lecture 26 ri, tr

Lecture 27 Word with ligatures (1)

Lecture 28 li, gi

Lecture 29 ta, tu, ti

Lecture 30 Words with ligatures (2)

Section 5: Project : Samplers

Lecture 31 Sampler with pen and ink

Lecture 32 Sampler with a brush

Section 6: Projet : Envelope

Lecture 33 Address an envelope

Section 7: Conclusion

Lecture 34 In all that you do, do it with love

Lecture 35 More guidelines

This course will appeal to those having already done some of the more straightforward styles of calligraphy, such as the simple gothic hand, the foundational or Carolingian hands. This is an alphabet with some unusual letterforms, so those who like to try something different will love it!