This was a break from the tradition of using italics referencing the written hand.Įven though the Romain du Roi used obliques they were not common in typefaces until the 19th century when sans serif fonts became popular. The second development, the Romain du Roi italics were not a true italic instead they were an oblique version of their Roman counterparts. The idea of a font family didn’t exist, instead, printers would use whatever was on hand. Until this point printers would use whatever roman and italic were available. In 1690 The Roman du Roi radically affected italics in two ways: first, it was the first typeface where the italics were designed specifically to be used with the Roman. Italics quickly gained popularity, and many printers began to copy Manutius and print with italics. Over time the use of italics has changed, now italics are typically used to denote something or for emphasis. Italics were also used because they gave the book the look that they were handwritten instead of printed. Manutius would set his whole book using italics in order to save space, as paper and other resources were expensive. The first italics were developed by Aldus Manutius.
