[jjs]

Not quite.

http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=3454

When the humanist hand was invented, the prevailing hand for illuminated manuscripts was blackletter. While either is aesthetically pleasing, the humanist hand caught on because it was readable and vastly more ergonomic to write.

Practice some dip pen calligraphy and you'll quickly notice that a humanist hand feels natural, and takes much less effort than blackletter to form beautiful characters.

Blackletter (as an everyday hand) persisted in church manuscripts (and in Germany, perhaps due to a cultural love of precise craftsmanship), but it's not surprising that many monks also adopted humanist: if your job is copying written works by hand, it makes sense to keep your eyes and hands under as little strain as possible.

P.S. What's a "typeface"? ;)

[msutherl]

Yes, but when humanist type was invented, humanist script had already been used in illuminated manuscript. Thanks for the provocation though – it prompted me to take a closer look at the history and I think I may have been wrong to bring up the association to early Christianity. Indeed blackletter is the script of early Christianity and humanist script more indicative of the return to antiquity and the resulting cultural revolutions. So, there are actually 3 periods that are evoked by such typefaces – the late Roman and Carolingian eras, the early Renaissance, and the early 20th century's recontextualization of that aesthetic.