Figure 319
Roman in P. Didot’s Spécimen etc., Paris
From Library of Congress (scan)
1819
The development of this Didot letter is shown…. Here we see a new style of French type in full swing. Pierre Didot says these fonts were engraved under his personal supervision by the type-cutter Vibert, whom he assisted (and probably inordinately tormented) for three hours a day for ten years to get things to his mind.…There are marked and disagreeable peculiarities in some letters, and its disabled g and wounded y warn us of the danger of too much fussing over details.