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Humanists and Geraldes
 They were modelled upon the humanist minuscule. Written with a not overly broad pen, the humanist minuscule showed very little difference between main strokes and hairlines. The pen was usually held at a 30° angle, hence the triangular serifs and the marked inclination of the diameters in round letters. The lower case characters were taken from the Carolingian minuscule and the capitals from the Roman Capitalis Quadrata. The printing type first appeared around 1470 in Venice (hence Venetian Old Style). The version the French punch-cutter, Claude Garamond, made in the middle of the 16th century, was one of the most expressive examples of an old style face ever to be produced. Its distinguishing features were a gradual and smooth transition from the stems to the serifs with rounded angles and only little contrast between .hairlines and main strokes. The diameters of the round letters have a backward slant.
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