Typographical classification by Aldo Novarese, 1957

 

The diversity of the shapes of the characters affects the aesthetics, the legibility of the text and in the case of cinema in the connotation of a style that defines a context of belonging to a film. There are thousands of different fonts with the most disparate shapes, to recognize them several attempts have been made to classify them. Among these, one of the most accredited and recognized is that of Aldo Novarese, here taken as a system for assigning a class to the characters present in the films analyzed. According to the Novarese classification, all the characters can be divided into 10 families assigned on the basis of the historical characterization and the design of their rods and their terminal section.
 
Bodonian

Fantasy

Slab

Lapidary

 

They have an exaggerated thickness ratio between very thin rods and thick rods. The graces join with the vertical shaft of the letter forming an obvious right angle.

The category “Fantasy” includes all those characters that do not fall within the other classifications and that have been invented without any constructive rule. They are often characterized by a great deal of detail and are used only in capital letters as they are difficult to read.

They are recognizable by the very accentuated and thick graces, and at right angles.
They refer to the ancient Roman characters, when they were used for epigraphs and for inscriptions on monuments. They have triangular graces that form an acute angle with the base line, typical of chisel carvings on stone.
 
Linear

Medieval

Ornate

Script

 

Also called sticks. They are the most modern fonts, without graces and mostly uniform thicknesses of the temples.

Also called gothic. They were the typical characters of the Gutenberg period, but today difficult to read. They have elongated ends characterized by accentuated angles. The graces are defined as “spear point pointing down” and are the result of the use of the calligraphic nib with a flat tip and positioned at 45 degrees.

The Ornates are also called scribes. They are those characters that have very accentuated decorations and shading, have flourishes, human and floral figures and are hard to read. They are usually used as drop caps.
Also called calligraphic. They imitate handwriting. They therefore assume very heterogeneous characteristics in relation to the type of writing instrument that is imitated.
 
Transitional

Venetian

 

So called because they indicate the transition between the Ancient Roman and the Modern Roman, and were born around the 1700s. The rods almost never have an inclination, they have horizontal and thin graces, they end with a rod whose base has a linear course.

They derive from ancient Roman characters, such as the Lapidaries, but differ from these for the rounded end of the graces, the more contrasting lines and the slightly concave foot of the shaft. They spread around the second half of the 15th century in Venice, home of the first Italian printers.