The Romain du Roi (French for "King's roman") was a typeface developed in France beginning in 1692. The name refers to Louis XIV who commissioned the design of the new typeface for use by the Royal Print Office.[1][2]
The Romain du Roi stands as a landmark of typography in the Age of Enlightenment. The conception of the letterforms reflects a difference in attitude from the prevailing roman typefaces before it. Whereas previous roman typefaces developed naturally over time, evolving in the hands of punch cutters from the typefaces of the fifteenth century, the Romain du Roi was the result of rational design: the letterforms were mapped on grids before being cut into metal.
The Romain du Roi was not the first "constructed alphabet". Felice Feliciano was the first to recreate geometrically the alphabet of roman inscriptions, and published it in 1463 as Alphabetum Romanum Codex Vaticanus 6852. The Romain du Roi, however, because of its allegiance to the grid, shows a distinct shift in style, with an increased emphasis on verticality and increased contrast between thick and thin elements, a style that influenced the Transitional typefaces of Pierre Simon Fournier and John Baskerville.
The letterforms were the work of the Royal Academy's Bignon Commission as part of its investigation of French typography and printing for the compilation of the Description of the Arts and Trades of France. The capital letters were drawn on 8×8 grids, the lowercase letters on rectangular grids. The committee's designs were engraved by Louis Simonneau. Punches for the metal type were cut by Philippe Grandjean, who took some liberty with his type, to moderate the cold geometry of the designs. The type was first used for Médailles sur les principaux événements du règne de Louis le Grand.
Sample of Romain du Roi in 1702.Sample of Romain du Roi in 1702, showing small capitals and italics characters.
^Mosley, James. "Comments on Typophile thread". Typophile. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
^Paul Shaw (April 2017). Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past. Yale University Press. pp. 85–6. ISBN 978-0-300-21929-6.
course in the use of actual Baskerville types. Didot proceeded from the "romainsduroi" and would have so proceeded if Baskerville had never printed. Even...
point system, vector fonts, the bitmap, slanted italic type, and the RomainduRoi ("King's Roman") font, which later developed into Times New Roman. In...
the original period of transitional typefaces include early on the "romainduroi" in France, then the work of Pierre Simon Fournier in France, Fleischman...
around the 1740s. Created in the Rococo style and influenced by the RomainduRoi typefaces commissioned by the French government in the previous century...
Father Truchet in creating the first typographic point system and the RomainduRoi ("King's Roman"), the font later developed into Times New Roman. v t...
Romain Gary (pronounced [ʁɔ.mɛ̃ ga.ʁi]; 21 May [O.S. 8 May] 1914 – 2 December 1980), born Roman Kacew (pronounced [kat͡sɛf], and also known by the pen...
engraver notable for his series of Roman and italic types known as RomainduRoi (French: King's Roman), produced in tandem with Louis Simonneau. King...
new italics, wider and with flat incoming serifs, introduced by the Romainduroi type and popularised by Simon-Pierre Fournier (see below): "it is common...
Berlioz's overtures: Overtures: Les francs-juges, Waverley, Le roi Lear, Le carnaval romain, Béatrice et Bénédict, Le corsaire, Benvenuto Cellini, Rob Roy...
Caractères (1742; spelled by him as Modéles des Caracteres) continued the RomainduRoi style, but adapted it for his own new age. The typefaces that Fournier...
book set in the RomainduRoi Roman type, devised for use by the Imprimerie nationale in France: Médailles sur les principaux événements du règne de Louis...
January 2008 release of Les Mathématiques duRoi Heenok, the first DVD project ever directed by Mohamed Mazouz & Romain Gavras. Heenok has achieved notoriety...
(with whose brother Evan he worked in the 1950s), and, in Europe, the RomainduRoi. Mosley grew up in Twickenham in south-west London, where he became...
from the general mode of Phillipe Grandjean's and Louis Simonneau's "RomainduRoi," commissioned by Louis XIV in 1692 for the Imprimerie Royale, but did...
gaining ground in mainland Europe during Caslon's life, notably the romainduroi type of the previous century, the work of Pierre-Simon Fournier in Paris...
weekend between 29 June to 2 July. The best manufacturer wins the Coupe duRoi (King's Cup), which is not necessarily the race winners. The cup is won...
Romain Gavras (French: [ʁɔmɛ̃ ɡavʁas]; born 4 July 1981) is a French director. He is known for directing M.I.A.'s videos "Bad Girls" and "Born Free", Kanye...
confused with the French engraver Nicholas Briot. For instance the romainduroi type of the previous century, the work of Pierre-Simon Fournier in Paris...
from Goethe's Faust and Rossini's Semiramide. He also translated La Fille duroi des Aulnes (The Erl King’s Daughter), based on a Danish legend, which was...
scenes and portraits. He was a near-contemporary of the Premier Peintre duRoi Charles Le Brun with whom he engaged in a bitter, life-long rivalry. Pierre...
Truchet's system was applied to the types of the Imprimerie Royale, the romainsduroi. It is thought that Fournier knew about Truchet's scheme that was based...
des Arts, Pavillon duRoi, and Pavillon de l'Horloge, the latter also known as Pavillon Sully. The section between the Pavillon duRoi and the Pavillon...
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