BACKGROUND: Praetorian, Proconsular and Palaestra are three faces inspired by informal, painted Roman wall writing (though not exactly graffiti) of the first centuries AD. This of course is where the Western alphabets really started. All faces share essentially the same caps, but the l/c characters have been progressively “modernized”: Praetorian is close to the originals, Proconsular veers toward the later uncial writing, while Palaestra has been “romanised” (with a lower-case ‘r’e.g.) and it has even been given an oblique version. Originally, Praetorian and Proconsular had no Arabic numerals, as these are of course a howling anachronism — they came into limited use some one thousand years later — but they have nevertheless been added. The caps are very useful by themselves, for initials and titling when a Roman touch is desired, though without the formality of the stone-cut capitalis quadrata (q.v. Triumphalis)
KEYWORDS: Roman, airy, angular, book, capitals, carved, chiseled, elegant, hand, historical, humanist, informal, large, legible, lineage, lineageformal, modernized, non-lining, open, painted, progressive, readable, revival, romanised, smallcaps, stone-cut, title, titling, wide
BY: LARS BERGQUIST
Lars Bergquist, of Timberwolf Type, born in 1936, is a self-proclaimed "leftover from the age of lead type and letterpress printing." His first avocation was history, which may well explain his love of classical letterforms, historically significant typefaces and "...fuddy-duddy typography in general." Recently retired from a lifetime in the technically advanced field of reference publishing, he has decided to spend his next life as a dedicated type designer. His typeface Absolut Type -- published by PSY/OPS as Aalborg -- received a Certificate of Excellence in the Bukva:raz! type contest arranged by the ATypI in 2001. He has been happily married to the same woman since 1964, lives outside Stockholm, Sweden, and has two daughters and a grandson. His atypical interests are history, small arms, photography and hiking in the mountains of Lapland.
DOWNLOAD THE PALAESTRA GROUP PDF SPECIMEN
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Palaestra Group Buy: 4 fonts for $75 |
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Palaestra Regular & Oblique Buy: 2 fonts for $49 |
![]() BUY: $36
Regular |
![]() BUY: $36
Oblique |
![]() BUY: $36
Group - Praetorian |
![]() BUY: $36
Group - Proconsular |



