File talk:Granjon italic capitals.jpg

Comment on the Q

So this image comes from a type specimen book by Claude Lamesle from 1742, a century and a half after Granjon's death, and is reprinted in Vervliet's stunning Palaeotypography of the French Renaissance. He notes that the J and U were later additions. (In Granjon's time they weren't used in French orthography.) I've blanked them out. (I did not use Vervliet's illustration: I made my own from Google Books.) The U went before the X.

The Q is more of a poser. A 1648 specimen I don't have a copyright-free copy of shows a different Q, very much in Granjon's normal style with a much longer tail. Vervliet notes that Lamesle's specimen has "divergent capitals J, Q, U", but in the caption to the illustration only says "the J and U are later additions". So it's not clear what he means by "divergent", but that seems to imply that he thinks it's at least possible that the Q might be an alternative letter but authentic. (I would feel very awkward contacting him to ask.) I've decided to remove it anyway, on balance: it doesn't look much like Granjon's other italic Qs, which tend to have much longer tails. (Unfortunately this beautiful type hasn't survived so it's not possible to check the matrices to see if they match.) Blythwood (トーク) 21:42, 22 July 2020 (UTC)