One of the things that appealed to me about the "Peace to My Friend" sampler is the beautiful old-fashioned alphabet with its unusual inclusion of a selection of ligatures, something that is rarely seen in samplers, old or new. As I approached it, though -- working as I am from the top downwards -- I thought, "Now, why aren't those ligatures in alphabetical order, I wonder."
And of course, the closer I got to them, the more I wondered until, princess-and-the-pea-like, I realized that I would find it that tiny bit niggling forever -- and more importantly, my friend would too, being of a similar turn of mind. And looking at the chart, I began to see other little details that puzzled me -- the missing dot of the i in the long-s-plus-i combination, the lack altogether of a bar of any size on two of the ligatures ...
Now, I am not as learned as it might sound from this, but I do know where to at least start researching, and in this case I chose Wikipedia, the article on ligatures. Much of this article was lost on me, truth be told, but much I appreciated very much. Isn't this a thing of beauty?! --
Ligature "Th" in handwriting font Taumfel, illustration by Nikolai Sirotkin on Wikipedia
Ordinarily, the lower-case h would have a loop for its ascender in this cursive-like font, but that looks a bit clumsy coming right after a capital T, so it has been adjusted to have a single-stroke ascender, with the addition of that delicate turn at the top that is like the difference between John Curry and, oh, even a second-place skater, really.
Ligatures "Wh" and "Th" in handwriting font Taumfel by Nikolai Sirotkin on Wikipedia
Not long after this, I also opened up a window with the article on the long s, and decided that, although I am told that the long-s is found with its "nub" or without, it seemed to me that consistency was called for in a single document, and I should choose one or the other. Since it had already been established in the lower-case alphabet that the long-s has its nub, I went with that rather than have to go back and pick out the earlier instance (!). (Further research seems to indicate that the barless long-s is in fact the italic version, so would presumably appear in its barless or uncrossed form only in an italic font....)
I was concerned that the descender of the lower-case j in the line above would be obscured by the numerous ascenders in the line below, but as it happened, it all went together quite smoothly and the sometimes-impulsive changes that I made gave it a nearly-perfect amount of space to be enjoyed and appreciated for the small-but-graceful detail it is. I changed my mind as I stitched, and re-inserted the space in the ff ligature as the white space wasn't as glaring as I thought it would be, after all, and that after some more research I made the crossbar in the fi ligature connect all of the way across as it should do, and does in the original ffi ligature.
For further amusement, should you desire it, may I recommend "An Excellent Original Project Designed to Reduce Ignorance of the Long S" and, in case somehow you should think that librarians don't have a sense of humor, "fociety for the Reftoration of the Long f" ....
Goodness, I enjoyed that! Thank you, too, for sending me off down some rabbit holes - I needed some new ones. I didn't know John Curry had died...
Posted by: Toffeeapple | March 16, 2020 at 10:59 AM
That was a most enjoyable journey, thank you!
Posted by: Keli | May 05, 2020 at 02:49 AM
Keli, you're welcome!
Posted by: Jeanne | May 05, 2020 at 07:30 AM