This site is in danger of going away; please consider the Donate link above...
Scans from The Book of Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and Mediæval collected and engraved by Freeman Gage Delamotte (1814 – 1862); London, Crosby Lockwood and Co., 1879
If anyone is interested, I’ll try and do some better scans of the alphabets and examples of calligraphy and calligraphic initials in this book.
(Note: Mediæval is the older British English spelling of Mediaeval, or Medieval).
The full title page is transcribed alongside its image. This is an oblong octavo with alphabets printed in various colours including red, green and brown.
Title: Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and Mediæval
City: London
Date: 1879
Total items: 102
Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free for all purposes usage credit requested, or as marked.
Front Cover
[$]
A Victorian border taken from the book cover of this vintage book of alphabets and lettering. [more...] [$]
Vintage shabby-chic ornate full-page border
A shabby-chic Victorian border taken from the book cover of this vintage book of alphabets and lettering. [more...] [$]
The back cover of this Victorian book has a geometric border and a floral ornament. [$]
The Book Of Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and MediƦval, from the eighth century, with numerals, including Gothic; Church Text;, Large and Small; German Arabesque; Initials for Illumination, monograms, crosses, &c., for the use of architectural and engineering; draughtsmen, masons, decorative painters, [...] [more...] [$]
8th Century. Vatican
8th Century. British Museum
8th and 9th Centuries. Anglo-Saxon.
9th Century From an Anglo-Saxon MS. Battel Abbey
From MS. Library of Minerva, Rome
10th Century. British Museum.
11th Century and Numerals
12th Century. From the Mazarin Bibe
12th Century. Two small. British Museum
12th Century. British Museum
12th Century. Bodleian Library
13th Century. Henry III. Westminster Abbey.
13th Century. From Latin MS.
13th Century. MS.
14th Century. Date about 1340
14th Century. British Museum
14th Century. Illuminated MS.
14th Century. Richard II. 1400. Westminster Abbey.
14th Century. Richard II. 1400. Small. Westminster Abbey.
14th Century. British Museum
14th Century. From MS. Munich.
14th and 15th Centuries. Two Small. British Museum.
1475. British Museum
1480. British Museum
1490. British Museum
Henry VII. Westminster Abbey
[more...] [$]
3. 8th and 9th Centuries. Anglo-Saxon.
Calligraphy from England in the 8th and 9th centuries. [$]
4.—9th Century. From an Anglo-Saxon MS. Battel Abbey.
Today called Battle Abbey. Someone made a font from a Dover reprint of this alphabet—Rob Anderson, I think. There is no coyright statement on the font, which was probably originally a PostScript Type 1 font converted to TrueType. I don’t think [...] [more...] [$]
07. 7.—11th Century and Numerals
The odd title really means that this image is a plate made from Eleventh Century AD initial letters; the “numerals” are actually Roman numbers done as ligatures. [more...] [$]
Note: If you got here from a search engine and don’t see what you were looking for, it might have moved onto a different page within this gallery.