GFS Eustace fonts

GFS Eustace majuscule Greek font



Description
As it is known, the Greek alphabet was used in majuscule form for over a millennium before the minuscule letters gradually replaced it until they became the official script in the 9th century A.D. Thereafter, majuscule letters were confined to sparse use as initials or elaborate titles until the Italian Renaissance.

The new art of Typography, as well as the need of the humanists to mimic the ancient Greco-Roman period brought back the extensive use of the majuscule letter-forms in both Latin and Greek typography. Greek books of the time were printed using the contemporary Byzantine hand with which they combined capital letters modelled on the Roman antiquity, i.e. with thick and thin strokes and serifs. At the same time the Byzantine majuscule tradition, principally used on theological editions, remainned alive until the early 19th century.

GFS Eustace is a typical example of Byzantine woodcut initials used in many similar forms in Italy for Greek editions of the Bible, Prayers and other theological literature from the 15th to 19th centuries.

It has been designed by George D. Matthiopoulos.