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Roman cursive (orLatin cursive) is a form ofhandwriting (or ascript) used inancient Rome and to some extent into theMiddle Ages. It is customarily divided into old (or ancient) cursive and new cursive, and has different forms. Roman cursive adapted to both incised and ink-written forms, depending on the medium and purpose, ranging from everyday business records and letters to ephemeral graffiti and classroom exercises.[1]
Old Romancursive, also calledmajuscule cursive and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning theLatin alphabet, and even byemperors issuing commands. A more formal style of writing was based onRoman square capitals, but cursive was used for quicker, informal writing. Most inscriptions atPompeii, conserved due to being buried in a volcanic eruption in AD 79, are written in this script.
It is most commonly attested from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD,[2] but it likely existed earlier than that. The script uses manyligatures (see, e.g.,Tironian notes), and some letters are hard to recognize – "a" looks like anuncial "a", but with the left stroke still straight, "b" and "d" are hard to distinguish, "e" is a full height letter (like the "s"), "p" and "t" are very similar, and "v" is written above the baseline, resembling a floatingbreve.[2] Many of the changes to the letters in Roman cursive were likely motivated by a desire to make the usage of ligatures easier. The letter "b" in Roman cursive contains a semicircular protuberance on its left side; this design feature may have been added in an attempt to conform to the needs of ligatures.[3]
The distinctivewriting style of Roman cursive emerged as the design of letters became simplified in colloquial contexts. Throughout the progression of Roman cursive, the number of strokes required to inscribe differing letters was significantly reduced. Roman cursive writing connected the strokes of differing letters to facilitate writing without lifting the writing utensil. The angles of standard letters were written as curves in Roman cursive due to ease of tracing curvatures with contemporarycalligraphy tools. Curves in Roman cursive were smaller than curves in standard Latin calligraphy; this is likely because smaller curves are easier to trace than larger ones.[3]
During the 1st and 2nd centuries the style of formal Roman cursive experienced dramatic changes. Documents from this period contain innumerable versions of the Roman cursive letters; many documents contain different variations on cursive letters within the same text. This process continued until scribes had adopted a uniform, professional cursive script utilized by them around the 2nd to 3rd centuries. This more standardized style typically consisted of downward strokes followed by right-leaning upward strokes. Collectively, these characteristics gave the style a two-line pattern. Although common in professional writing, this style of cursive is not universal to all documents in Roman cursive. More informal documents still retained disorganized features and were unsuitable for ligatures. During the 3rd century, informal cursive styles almost completely replaced the scribal cursive, even in formal contexts.[3]
The informal style developed into a four-line script known as New Roman cursive, sometimes also called minuscule cursive or later Roman cursive.[3] It was used from approximately the 3rd century to the 7th century. This style of cursive uses letterforms that are more recognizable to modern readers: "a", "b", "d", and "e" have taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters are proportionate to each other rather than varying wildly in size and placement on the line.[3] The right-leaning vertical strokes of New Roman cursive were rounder and longer than similar strokes found in Old Roman Cursive. Although there were a smaller number of ligature combinations in New Roman cursive, some new ligature styles emerged by imposing the characteristics of one letter onto another. Letters had short lines extending horizontally towards the next letter.[4]
These letter forms would gradually evolve into various scripts with a more regional character by the 7th century, such as theVisigothic script inSpain, theBeneventan script in southern Italy, or theMerovingian script in northernFrance. They also formed part of the basis of theuncial andhalf-uncial scripts, particularly for the letters "a", "g", "r", and "s", which in turn are the basis forGaelic type.[5]
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