Bug#421232: ITP: GFS Complutum - Ancient Greek font
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
* Package name : ttf-gfs-complutum
* Version : 1.0
* Upstream Author : George D. Matthiopoulos
(Greek Font Society)
* URL :
http://www.greekfontsociety.org/pages/en_typefaces16th.html
* License : Open Font License
* Description : Ancient Greek font
The ancient Greek alphabet evolved during the millenium of the Byzantine
era from majuscule to minuscule form and gradually incorporated a wide
array of ligatures, flourishes and other decorative nuances which
defined its extravagant cursive character. Until the late 15th century,
typographers who had to deal with Greek text avoided emulating this
complicated hand; instead they would use only the twenty four letters of
the alphabet separately, often without accents and other diacritics. A
celebrated example is the type cut and cast for the typesetting of the
New Testament in the so-called Complutensian Polyglot Bible (1512),
edited by the Greek scholar, Demetrios Doukas. The type was cut by
Arnaldo Guillén de Brocar and the whole edition was a commision by
cardinal Francisco Ximénez, in the University of Alcalá (Complutum),
Spain. It is one of the best and most representative models of this
early tradition in Greek typography which was revived in the early 20th
century by the eminent bibliographer of the British Library, Richard
Proctor. A font named Otter Greek was cut in 1903 and a book was printed
using the new type. The original type had no capitals so Proctor added
his own, which were rather large and ill-fitted. The early death of
Proctor, the big size of the font and the different aesthetic notions of
the time were the reasons that Otter Greek was destined to oblivion, as
a curiosity. Greek Font Society incorporated Brocar's famous and
distinctive type in the commemorative edition of Pindar's Odes for the
Athens Olympics (2004) and the type with a new set of capitals, revived
digitaly by George D. Matthiopoulos, is now available for general use.
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