altarpiece of Pellegrino II

All inscriptions of the altarpiece were written in Latin. The font of the dedicatory inscription is overall classified as Gothic capitalis. Modern commentators agree that the inscriptions were produced by hammering individual letter punches one by one into the silver plate. Evidence for this typographic method can be derived from the observation that the letterforms comply with the criterion of type identity according to which every letter imprint must come from one and the same letter punch. The type identity is inter alia evident in the repeated occurrence of the faulty letter "R" throughout the text that indicates a damaged letter punch. The high relief letters stand proud in rectangular recesses created by the bases of the low relief punches; the fine edges between these recesses are a further indication of the sequential use of individual letter punches. A number of letters which are not properly aligned to their baseline provide additional evidence that the artisan worked with separate punches. A total of about forty types, which come in equal parts in a smaller and larger font size, were employed for creating the inscriptions. The smaller ones were used for the names of the saints and the donor's inscription of the patriarch, while the names of the archangels, of the Mother of God, the abbreviations of sanctus/sancta ("holy") and the two-line inscription were printed with the larger set. The latter text was punched into eight silver strips which were strung together and nailed onto the wooden substructure of the altarpiece. According to the art historian Angelo Lipinsky, the altarpiece may have been inspired by Byzantine reliquaries which were decorated by the same typographic technique in the 10th to 12th centuries. However, a random check with the Limburg Staurotheca which dates from this period showed that the inscription was engraved directly into the metal. The Prüfening dedicatory inscription of 1119 is another early example of typographic text production in the Latin West. It differs in some technical details though: its plate is made of clay, not silver, and the inscription was created in low relief with (wooden) stamps, not metal punches.