Numbers in Typography

Carl Shank • August 26, 2024

Numbers In Typography


Personal Background.  I am a minister by calling and a self-trained typographer. Yet, I was also trained to be a mathematician by my college degree in mathematics. Indeed, before seminary days, I was a mathematics teaching assistant at the University of Maryland for a season. Numbers have played a significant role in my training and development, both as a theologian and typographer. It is for this reason that I found the sample numerals in Lewis F. Day’s Alphabets Old and New (London, 1910) fascinating and important to the development of type and fonts.


Numbers and Numerals.  First things first. We must distinguish between “numbers” and the symbols that represent them as “numerals.” A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth.  Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can be represented by symbols, called numerals; for example, "5" is a numeral that represents the number five.


The current symbols we use for numbers, namely 0,1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 9, only came about in practice in the late 14th  and early 15th century in Western European civilization. Before these Arabic symbols, the Egyptians invented the first ciphered numeral system, and the Greeks followed by mapping their counting numbers onto Ionian and Doric alphabets.  Roman numerals, a system that used combinations of letters from the Roman alphabet, remained dominant in Europe until the spread of the superior Hindu–Arabic numeral system around the late 14th century, and the Hindu–Arabic numeral system remains the most common system for representing numbers in the world today.


Numbers were indicated by Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hebrew and Greek letters and the classic Roman numerals. As a schoolboy, I had to learn the Roman numeral system, thus, 1= I, 5 = V, 10 = X, L = 50, C = 100, D = 500, M = 1000. Such a numeral system only gradually faded over time, with Roman numerals often seen on current day clock faces, monuments and buildings and copyright dates on the title screens of movies and television programs. MCM, signifying "a thousand, and a hundred less than another thousand", means 1900, so 1912 is written MCMXII. For the years of the current (21st) century, MM indicates 2000; this year is MMXXIV (2024).




The Arabic Numerals.  The Arabic numerals found their way into Europe some time during the 12th  century via the Italian scholar and mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (1170 – 1250) who grew up in North Africa and is credited for bringing the decimal system to Europe. Although he died two centuries before Gutenberg, Fibonacci introduced Arabic numerals to northern Italian scribes. His 13th-century work Liber Abaci was crucial in making Arabic numerals known throughout Europe; however, their use in Europe was largely confined to Northern Italy until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century.


The adoption of these numerals in England lagged behind their European counterparts, with the beginning of the 17th century as the date of their universal acceptance. The numerals, as we know them, or even as they were written in the 15th century, do not bear any marked resemblance to the genuine Arabic. Numbers 1 and 9, and the all-important cypher, 0, are the only Eastern figures which seem to claim direct oriental ancestry.


The Numeral 0.  You will note in a typographical study of numerals that the numeral “0” is often missing in the earliest studies and writings. As late as the 15th century, the numeral zero was regarded as umbre et encombre, “dark and encumbered,” and its German name, Null, is derived from the idea that it is nulla figura, not a “real” figure. The mathematician Fibonacci used the term zephyrum. This became zefiro in Italian, and was then contracted to zero in Venetian. The Italian word zefiro was already in existence (meaning "west wind" from Latin and Greek Zephyrus) and may have influenced the spelling when transcribing Arabic ṣifr. The Indian system includes the zero, permitting complicated mathematical operations. Indian sources have called zero shunya, “emptiness,”, that is, an emptiness that fills the lines between numbers and thus makes it easy to distinguish the position of a number in terms of units, tens and so forth.


Numerology. We cannot study numbers and numerals without taking note of their typological importance. Numerals meant something to many peoples throughout the ages. In early Greek, still existing in Hebrew and Arabic, the Arabic alphabet follows the old Semitic sequence of letters, called abjad. Each letter has a twofold meaning, allowing one to develop relations between names, meaningful words and numbers. 


The number “666” in the Bible in the Book of Revelation is a model case. Found in Revelation 13:18 — “This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.” — many Bible scholars have sought to unmask the significance of such a number combination.

Some have said it represents the “Nero Caesar,” that is, if the final letter is omitted to give the Latin spelling of the name so that the total is 616, an acceptable variant reading of the text. 


However, Leon Morris in his excellent commentary on Revelation notes that “to get this result we must use the Greek form of the Latin name, transliterated into Hebrew characters, and with a variant spelling at that (the vowel letter y has to be omitted from qysr). This solution has its attractions, but no-one has shown why a Hebrew name with an unusual spelling should be employed in a Greek writing.” (Leon Morris, The Revelation of St. John, Tyndale Series Commentaries)


He would suggest that “we should understand the expression purely in terms of the symbolism of numbers. If we take the sum of the values represented by the letters of the name IēsousN, the Greek name ‘Jesus’, it comes to 888; each digit is one more than seven, the perfect number. But 666 yields the opposite phenomenon, for each digit falls short. The number may be meant to indicate not an individual, but a persistent falling short,” that the unregenerate man is persistently evil.


Philosophy of Numbers. It may seem obvious that 1 + 1 = 2, that the Euclidean system of doing and thinking about numbers has codified the numeral system. Up to the latter part of the 19th century, mathematics operated with axioms and rules of Euclidean geometry. For example, two points define a straight line. It was presupposed that there existed only one coherent analysis of numbers, line, space and so forth. “1+1 = 2 is true” went unquestioned for the most part.


With the rise of the Enlightenment and Rationalism, along with the variant theologies of German Rationalism, and skepticism in the theological sphere, came an explosion of new mathematics. The theory of infinite numbers was introduced. Negative, complex and irrational numbers entered mathematical activity. Euclidean geometry became quite inadequate. For the first time in great measure, the problem of consistency came up.


The Law of Contradiction no longer held true. Thus, in Riemannian geometry, through a given point outside a line no parallel to it can be drawn! And the nightmare began! There was no way to prove mathematical consistency with itself because even if all the theorems of a system were logically true, we don’t have all the theorems at hand. Perhaps the next one may contradict them all! Axioms outside the range of finite or infinite cannot be known. This pointed to the unsolvable dilemma of consistency. The terms “point,” “line,” “between” became meaningless.


Bertram Russell said that “pure mathematics is the subject in which we do not know what we are talking about, or whether what we are saying is true.” God, after all, if He does exist, might be playing a grand hoax. After the last mathematician dies, the last equation written, the last problem solved, He would deny all such work and have completely different truths about numbers than what we have now. We see this struggle in René Descartes work on methodical doubt.


I am convinced that 1 + 1 = 2 and am satisfied that a God of order and consistency has so ordained it to be so. The Bible says in Colossians 1:17 that “And he [Jesus Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” To “cohere” in verse 17 implies consistency. So, 1 + 1 = 2 is true because ultimately God has in fact ordained and revealed it to be truth.


The apologist Cornelius Van Til has said, “The scientist is guilty when he handles nature as though it were a grab-bag tossed into his lap by chance instead of the estate of the Creator-Redeemer.” (Cornelius Van Til, The Doctrine of Scripture)


The examples below are digitized samples from the 15th century onwards drawn from Day’s book. 

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Advances in Typography (1500–1900): A Historical Sketch (Part 1)

By Carl Shank • November 18, 2025
Advances in Typography (1500–1900) A Historical Sketch (Part 1) Early Renaissance (1500–1550) We had noted in the Blog “What Happened After Gutenberg: 1460–1640” (November 8, 2025) that movable type spread across Europe beyond its German roots. Gothic Blackletter type, though still used for religious and legal documents, began to give way to Venetian old style humanist faces. Influenced by humanist handwriting and calligraphy, Aldus Manutius and Francesco Griffo developed italic type for compact books. National printing centers became established in Venice, Italy, Paris and Lyon, France, Basel, Germany and Antwerp in the Netherlands The transition from Gothic to Italic typefaces was part of the broader evolution of typography that took place during the Renaissance period, driven by shifts in cultural, aesthetic, and technological factors. The Renaissance, beginning in Italy in the fourteenth century, marked a revival of classical antiquity and a move toward humanism. This brought a renewed interest in the legible, flowing scripts of Roman and Greek antiquity, which were more readable and aesthetically simple compared to Gothic lettering. The development of the printing press (ca. 1440) by Johannes Gutenberg created a need for more versatile and legible typefaces. The emerging humanist values aligned with a preference for typefaces that resembled the clear, round, and graceful writing of ancient Roman scripts.\ The Italic typeface was introduced by Aldus Manutius in Venice around 1501. Italic type is a cursive font based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. Along with Blackletter (See Blog Jan 16, 2025 Blackletter Type and Universities) and roman type, italic has served as one of the major typefaces in the history of Western typography. Italics takes notable influences from hand drawn calligraphy, with italic letters normally slanted slightly to the right. Upper case letters may have typographic swashes, flourishes inspired by ornate calligraphy. The name “italic” comes from their Italian use, to replace documents traditionally written in a hand-written style called chancery hand. Notice also the small “end point bowls” on some of the letters, where the ink pen stopped for a second. While modern italics are often more condensed than roman types, historian Harry Carter describes Manutius' italic as about the same width as roman type. To replicate handwriting, Griffo cut at least sixty-five tied letters (ligatures) in the Aldine Dante and Virgil of 1501. Italic typefaces of the following century used varying but reduced numbers of ligatures. Manutius sought to create more compressed elegant typefaces that could fit more text on a page, catering to the rising demand for smaller, portable books. Italic was based on the handwriting of Niccolò de’ Niccoli, a Renaissance scholar and calligrapher. Italic typefaces are defined by their slanted, cursive-like appearance, with letters that have a flowing, dynamic quality. It allowed for more text to be fitted on the page and mimicked the handwriting style of humanist scholars, like the handwriting of Petrarch. The common italic “slope” was introduced in the sixteenth century — “The first printer known to have used them was Johann or Johannes Singriener in Vienna in 1524, and the practice spread to Germany, France and Belgium. Particularly influential in the switch to sloped capitals as a general practice was Robert Granjon, a prolific and extremely precise French punchcutter particularly renowned for his skill in cutting italics. Vervliet comments that among punchcutters in France "the main name associated with the change is Granjon's.” (Wikipedia on Italic Type) The insertion of an italic typeface alongside a roman face would wait until later to distinguish portions of a book not properly belonging to the work, such as introductions, prefaces, indexes, and notes; the text itself being in Roman. Later, it was used in the text for quotations ; and finally served the double part of emphasizing certain words. Italic type was not only more elegant than the Gothic but also more efficient in terms of space. It became the preferred choice for printed texts that emphasized classical learning, philosophy, poetry, and humanist literature. Italic was initially used for entire texts but later became more common for emphasis alongside Roman type.

Type After Gutenberg: A Historical Sketch

By Carl Shank • November 8, 2025
What Happened to Type After Gutenberg? A Brief Historical Sketch from 1460-1640 At the end of the 15th century, German printing was at the forefront of a revolutionary transformation in Europe, driven by the invention of the movable-type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. This development had a profound impact on culture, education, and the dissemination of knowledge. By the end of the century, Germany had become one of the key centers of printing in Europe, particularly in cities like Mainz, Nuremberg, and Augsburg. Books printed before 1501 are referred to as incunabula . German printers produced a significant portion of the incunabula, with many focusing on religious texts such as the Bible, liturgical works, and theological treatises. Secular works, including classical texts, legal documents, and scientific works, also gained prominence towards the end of the century. Incunabular typography can be said to have two major sources of inspiration —fifteenth century scribes and German typecutters, the second group of which drew largely on (and sometimes coincided with) the first. Fifteenth-century typography was characterized by both continuity and innovation. Typecutters like Nicolas Jenson and Johan Veldener found themselves highly influential in their regions, designing typefaces for many printers, but scribes also contributed their weight to the design of typography. German printers played a key role in developing early typefaces. However, they were not the only typeface creators and users. There were altogether in the Netherlands twenty-two towns where books were issued before 1500. When printing had once been introduced it spread rapidly, all but three towns starting within the first ten years. Jacob Gibbons notes that types “changed hands” and were sold or rented across Europe, Germany to Italy and France, France and the Rhine valley to England, the Netherlands to England and France to the Netherlands. Type founding and paper making were international businesses. Typography became a vehicle of cultural exchange in late medieval and early modern Europe. Thus typography was as mobile as the printing press itself in fifteenth century Europe, and perhaps a more subtle carrier of cultural, regional, national, and even personal identity. One of the most popular typeface was Blackletter (also called Gothic script or Fraktur), which dominated printed works in Germany during this period. The dense and elaborate script was particularly suited to religious and formal texts. However, that Gothic Blackletter script was developed with nuances across Europe. Gutenberg’s textura quadrata face, used in printing his famous Bible, became Gutenberg textura used in university and legal settings. Albrecht Pfister produced his own typeface, somewhat distinct from Gutenberg, though possibly derived from it. Ulrich Zell used Fust and Schoeffer’s Durandus typeface. Rotunda type became a readable alternative to Gutenberg’s. Zainer’s Cotico Antiqua was used until 1485. The Schwabacher type was a dense but softer face, paving the way until the Fraktur face in the sixteenth century and beyond. By 1500, there were over 1,000 printers operating in various German cities, making Germany a leading hub for the printing industry. Notable printing centers included: Mainz—The birthplace of Gutenberg’s press; Nuremberg — An important center for both printing and intellectual activity; and, Augsburg—A commercial and printing hub. What is often lost in typographical history in the years closely following Gutenberg are the important printers and typographers in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Spain, England, Austria, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, Scotland, Mexico, Ireland and the United States who furthered the cause of typography and printed works. This Blog serves as a historical sketch of a number of these important people.
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