File:Alphabets old and new, for the use of craftsmen - with an introductory essay on Art in the alphabet (1898) (14579243398).jpg

Identifier: alphabetsoldnew00dayl (find matches)
Title: Alphabets old and new, for the use of craftsmen : with an introductory essay on Art in the alphabet
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Day, Lewis Foreman, 1845-1910
Subjects: Alphabets
Publisher: London : Batsford
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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material. With regard, now, to Numerals. Until the 15thcentury, the letters )\I, D, C, L, X, V, and I werein general use to express numbers. The Arabic numerals, as they are called, foundtheir way into Europe some time during the 12thcentury, but did not come into general use beforethe 15th, nor indeed much before the introductionof printing, which diffused the knowledge of them.Their adoption in England was more tardy thanon the continent, the beginning of the 17th centurybeing given as the date of their universal accept-ance here. The numerals, as we know them, oreven as they were written in the 15th century, donot bear any marked resemblance to the genuineArabic ; numbers i and 9, and the all-importantcypher, o, are the only Eastern figures which seemto claim direct oriental ancestry. The figures of the 15th century are not alwaysat first sight very easily legible ; the 7, for example(igo), presents anything but a familiar appear-ance, but upon examination that inverted V proves i
Text Appearing After Image:
33- PAINTED ON ITALIAN MAJOLICA. i6tH CENTURY. 38 Art ill the Alphabe-t, \ to be really an equal-limbed 7 placed (as it wouldnaturally fall) so as to rest upon its two ends: itis not the figure that is changed, but its position.Much more puzzling is the early form of 4 (192,1193, 194), a loop with crossed ends upon which it \^stands. The popular explanation of the figure ashalf an eight, is anything but convincing; and it Iappears to have no Eastern prototype. There is a17th-century version of it, however, in the Francis-kaner Kirche, at Rothenburg (207), which, hadit been of earlier date, might have been acceptedas a satisfactory explanation. There the loop hasa square end, and the figure rests, not upon its twoloose ends, but partly on its point. Imagine thisfigure standing upright, one point facing the left, andit is seen to be a 4 of quite ordinary shape. Thismay not be the genesis of the form ; but, if not, it isingeniously imagined by the 17th-century mason. Writers have from th

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