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The MalaTesta fonts are based on a writing sample, titled "Lettere piacevolle", and dating from the 16th century. I copied it out of a book from the library, years ago, but forgot to include the caption, and kept no notes concerning the source. After turning it into a font, I had to search the Net for information ... and I found it! Doing a search for that queer title led me to a Google book, by Lewis F. Day, on Penmanship of the 16th, 17th, and 18th century, which is displaying my writing sample (among lots of others), and stating that it was taken from A booke containing divers sortes of hands, published by J. de Beauchesne and J. Baildon, in 1571. Apparently, Beauchesne/Baildon didn't name the writing master who created this "rather fantastic italic hand" (BTW, that precious Google book, which is downloadable as a free PDF, even contains two samples of Francisco Lucas' penmanship This is essentially one font that comes in two weights. I called them MalaTestaCK and MalaTestaN, because ck and n are the consonants that distinguish the words 'thick' and 'thin'. However, it is likely this denomination will not last. By next update, both fonts may be assembled into one family. As to the name MalaTesta, I sincerely hope you'll never find out why I think it's self-explaining... ... for, sorry to say, these fonts can get quite messy. All of those curls, and hooks, and swashes, which may produce rather pretty effects in the right places, will get horribly entangled in the wrong ones. I did a lot of kerning, but, I fear, not nearly enough, and then there are still some odd combinations of characters, where all the kerning in the world will not help. So, the use of alternate characters, in these fonts, should not be avoided. They have been designed, not to make the font look more elaborate, but to simplify things. Let me implore you to at least use the bar or broken bar sign, whenever you want to type a Th in one of these fonts. On the number sign of the MalaTesta fonts, you'll find a long s, as usual. The other irregular characters are
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