Freedom of FormEarly Greek and Roman Lettering Rediscovered

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship 2015

Charlotte Howarth

Bronze sheet with Argive inscription, part of a law with curses against enemies of the state, 600 - 550BC(14016) Archaeological Museum, Athens 1

ContentsIntroduction / about me 3Aims 4Approach / Method 5Report 6 Summary 35

Marble inscribed stele from Megard, 1st century BC - 1st Century ADBenaki Museum, Athens 2

Me looking at a carving in Herculaneum

Introduction - about me

I have been working with letters for all of my adult life. I was introduced to letter carving by my stepfather, David Baker, when he set up his workshop at our home in Norfolk when I was 15. Through him and his gentle enthusiasm, my interest in lettering was sparked and from this my career has grown.

Most of my work involves carving into stone, these letters, or letter-forms, are all hand drawn and should not be confused with type. There is often a misunderstanding that the carving process is the most difficult part - but in reality, the drawing and designing of the lettering is an equally skilled anddemanding aspect of the work.

My training has come down through a tradition in lettering which began in the early 20th Century, started by Edward Johnston and continued by Eric Gill and David Kindersley. Through this very British tradition my work has been shaped, influenced and guided for the last 25+ years.

Understanding how letters work, how to draw their shapes, the spaces between them and how they fit together, how the whole fits on the page (or stone), and the messages they convey have been a constant source of interest and quest for understanding for all of my adult life.

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Aims

Lettering is an ancient craft and skill, the process of which has hardly changed for 1000s of years. Today there are relatively

few skilled practitioners in the UK and even fewer students learning. Partly due to a lack of opportunities, but also, I feel,

many potential students of lettering are put off by the demands of learning how to draw a proper ‘Roman alphabet’ -

this task can feel boring and repetitive and quickly turn potential students away from the subject.

I hope to be able to use and illustrate examples of more informal lettering styles as a way of inspiring students and

apprentices. To show how inherent beauty can also lie within a less formal approach and how classical perfection is not

necessary for something to be truly beautiful.

My aims for this trip were to look beyond the 20th century influences and rediscover, understand and be inspired

directly by the inscriptional lettering of the ancient Greek and Roman Empires. The Romans developed and perfected the

alphabet as we know it today, and the earlier Greek alphabet also helped to inspire some of these letter-forms.

I felt it was important to see the work in location where ever possible and to understand the context it was created in.

To see the different approaches and materials used and how they influenced the letter-forms and designs.

I hope to keep some of these skills alive, reinterpret them and pass them on to my students and apprentices.

My aim is for this study trip was to see and recordmaterial that I can use to inspire and share.

Stele - National Archaeological Museum, Naples (no details available). 4

Approach / Method

The only way for me to see the lettering I wanted to research was to go on location and look carefully, focusing on the de-tails which lettering demands. I took many photographs and sketched on location. I had hoped to be able to take rubbings of some of the inscriptions, however no museum or organisation I spoke to or contacted were prepared to let me do this (I have since discovered that permission is almost never given out any-more as conservators fear taking rubbings can damage the frag-ile surface of the stone).

After careful planning, I visited varied range of ancient sites, monuments and museums and saw a broad spectrum of lettering - incised into stone, engraved into lead and other metals, lettering in mosaics, painted onto pottery, stamped into clay and frescoed.

I also met with Robert Pitt in Athens, and Lucio Del Corso in Naples, both well known epigraphers, who helped me locate other places of interest and talk through my plans and ideas. I am most grateful for their time, assistance and thoughts.

Funerary stones, The Kerameikos Cemetery Athens. 5

Seeing all these letters in their original location was fantastic op-portunity and visiting the various archaeological sites was a truly informative experience. To walk down a street in Pompeii and come across a hanging carved shop sign, or walk by the Arch of Consantine in Rome with the large Imperial letters, once filled in with bronze, the mosaic letters of the shop keepers in Ostia Anti-ca, seen almost as they were intended to be seen helped to give a real sense of the role that lettering has played in history. All this in combination gave me a great overview and understanding of how letters have been used, changed and re-interpreted over time to suit different materials and purposes.

In most (but not all) of the museums I visited, the works were clearly notated in English, but often in the archaeological sites, there was little information to be found about the individual inscriptions. Where I have the details, I have included them with the images in my report.

I visited so many different places on my trip, for the purpose of this report,I have selected those images which help to represent the astonishing richness and variety of what I have seen and also to make a particular point.

Report

I started my trip in Athens as the Greek alphabet pre-dates the Roman alphabet and the Roman alphabet is influenced by the Greek. I was there for nearly two weeks, visiting a number of sites and locations, including Delphi, before flying to Naples,Italy. I spent nearly two weeks in and around Naples before moving on to Florence for a week, and finally, on to Rome for the last 2 weeks of my trip.

In each location I spent my days visiting sites, museums and churches, hunting down inscriptions I had heard/read about, sometimes successfully and occasionally not!

For the first month I was away, the temperatures were unusually high, often up to 36C, it was hard going in the heat, often standing in the full sun trying to draw, but I stuck at it - and eventually became accustomed to the climate.

During my seven weeks away I saw an vast amount of work, took 1000’s of photos and made many sketches - in effect, creating a large archive of material that I can share with my colleagues, stu-dents and apprentices and use for years to come. By spending my days looking and drawing, I found that over time, I began to get an intimate feel for the subtleties of the lettering I was look-ing at and to see the influence and changes the political climates had on lettering styles and approaches, such as the Roman Republican and Imperial period to early Christian carvings. I also saw Medieval and Renaissance lettering and while initially not on my radar, I felt added positively to my understanding of the development and history of lettering.

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Athens

I started my journey in Athens because it has it has a rich cultural history and offered a great many archaeological sites and museums for me to visit. While I was here I visited the;

Epigraphical MuseumByzantinium MuseumNumismatic MuseumArchaeological MuseumNew Acropolis MuseumBenaki MuseumAncient CemeteryAcropolisAncient AgoraTemple of OlympiaHadrian’s LibraryCycladic Museum

I also took an over night trip to Delphi.

Hadrian’s Arch, Athens 7

Athens Epigraphical Museum EM 10500 - (no further details available)

View inside the Epigraphic Museum 8

Athens Epigraphical Museum

Athens is home to the incredible Epigraphical Museum, an annex of the Archaeological museum, and it has a collection of tens of thousands of inscriptions and this was my first port of call. As in many of the places I subsequently visited, I was

surprised by the sheer volume of work available to look at and the variety of approaches used by the different carvers.

Much (but not all) of the Greek lettering is tiny, 5mm -15mm

approx, much smaller than I have ever cut and I would definitely use the word inscribed rather than carved to de-scribe them. Many of the carvings are quite rough in com-

parison to how I would cut my lettering today, the bottom of the V-cut is often not well defined, the edges of the letters are not so clear and the letters are often not very consistent

in their forms, but often the overall impression is one of great beauty and great legibility, even after more than 2000 – 3000

years.

Note 1.Overall design and freedom of form can be more important

than the purity of individual forms.

Image EM 10500

I liked the feel of the lettering on this stone because the letters were unusually large compared to many of the

inscriptions in the museum and I thought that they had a delicate feel to then, combined with a lovely sense of

freedom and contrasting with the heavy and rather bulky stone.

Like much of the carved lettering I saw, the overall design

of the work looked like it had been done directly, the letters are not centred to the space, or to each line and are more squeezed towards the end of the line that the beginning,

suggesting (to me) a direct rather than a very planned approach.

The endings of the letters have a subtle swelling style/serif, some slightly more marked than others. The letters X and N

are quite wide in comparison to the O and the M has a lovely swing to the centre of the middle stroke.

At first I thought that the shapes at the end of the line on the right were hearts, but on a closer inspection, I realised that

they were leaves.

Note 2.Do not be afraid to work directly and freely

Athens Epigraphical Museum EM 10500 9

EM 7743Decrees honouring the Ephebes of the tribe Kekropis,

headed by a catalogue of names of Ephebes334/3 BC

EM 7743Detail

EM7743

In this carving it is clear by the gridded layout of the letters (which are only 5-7mm - a phenominal skill, I am not sure I could carve to this small scale) - the overall layout is more important than the individual letter shapes. The grid is more apparent when the carving is viewed from a distance than close up. There is no evidence of a grid being scratched in for the letter-carver to follow, so it is unclear if it was carved by eye. My own view is that it would be really difficult to work to a system like this without some form of markings. The end result is beautiful, even though it is more difficult to read.

Note 3Pattern can be used to challenge the viewer to look closely and discover the meaning of the text.

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Byzantine and Christian Museum Athens

I loved the Byzantine Museum in Athens, it houses a collection of early Christian, Byzantine and Medieval artefacts and was a rich source of material for me because of the wide variety

of materials on display, many of them much more decorative than those in the Epigraphical Museum.

This inscription is roughly carved with only moderate skill, however, the overall feel of the stone is still very pleasing to

the eye. Guidelines have been scratched on, but not adhered to. There is a great deal of movement within the design but

little consistency within the mono-line letter-forms or spacing.

Note 4.Creating movement with letters can give beauty to a piece of

work even if the letters themselves are not beautiful or skilful.

11BXM 1048Marble slab with founders inscription and date 871

Byzantine and Christian Museum BXM 863Pair of wedding crowns, tin plated. 10the Century

BXM 863Tin Plated wedding crowns

Although these objects were much later than I had planned on looking at, I found the pieces of work very beautiful.The letters are decorative and playful, the serifs are quite pronounced separate triangles and above the bottom line of letters on both crowns there are much fainter lines of letters outlined in dots. This work combines a direct approach in the drawing of the lettering and at the same time shows an understanding of lettering as a pattern as well as having a message to convey.

Note 5.Important messages can also be presented in a playful and decorative way... if a confident, bold and direct approach is adopted.

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Delphi

Delphi was one of the highlights of my trip, it was truly beau-tiful experience which left me with a real sense of awe and wonder. The Athenian Treasury enthralled me the most, its walls are carved with the most beautiful letters and motifs - I missed this subtle detail when I first passed by, but as I was walking back down the hill the sun came out and hit the wall directly high-lighting the carvings. I discovered in the museum the next day that the texts are all songs to Apollo and include some of the first known carved musical notation.

All over Delphi there are numerous examples of carved lettering, whole walls carved with tiny text (often no more than 5mm – 15mm in height), this was often therefore easy to miss if the light didn’t catch it to show it up. I thought this gave the text a beautiful subtle quality that was so different to the much larger Roman carvings I am more familiar with and made me think about how I might use this more subtle approach in my own work and teaching.

The museum has an excellent collection of carvings and artefacts with clear information. Its excellent epigraphy collection is normally closed, however, the staff at the museum very kindly opened the room especially for me and let me have as much time as I needed - so a massive thanks to them for their kindness!

Tholos Temple, Delphi, 400-375 BCE 13

Image showing the carving on the side of the Athenian Treasury, DelphiText carving 128BC approx 14

Delphi

Delphi Lettering from the archaeological site.

This carving was part of a large wall covered in inscriptions, seeing them in natural day light was so much better than seeing works in a museum and was a great reminder of the benefits of seeing things on site. The way light falls outside is completely different to electric lighting, daylight allows you to see the lettering much more clearly and as the weather, clouds and sun change, so does the quality of what you see. I loved the way the very small text was highlighted then hidden as the sun moved between the clouds. I thought it was an interesting piece as the first thing I noticed were the guide lines scratched on to the stone and clearly visible. I saw number of examples of carving like this during my trip, but they were in the minority.Again, here the letters are really small, maybe 8-10mm high, the top few lines look slightly larger than the bottom lines, so perhaps they were added at a later date, or done by a differ-ent person. The serif endings are like an exaggerated triangle shapes, the overall feel of the work is one of consistency and confidence.

Note 6It is important to understand how natural and artifical light can change the impact of your work.

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Delphi Lettering from the archaeological site.

This carving was on a single stone set near the path and the lettering caught my eye for a number of reasons.

The diagonal cross stokes of the N do not reach all the way up to the top, leaving a clear gap, the letter K also has the

diagonal strokes left unattached. The B is also an unusual shape, looking very slightly larger than some of the

other letters. The W is also a very wide letter and unusual in its form in comparison to other inscriptions that I had seen. The Y

has a beautiful curve/splaying in the arms, which is occasionally seen in other inscriptions.

Looking at the overall layout (below), there is a lovely consistent rhythm to the text.

Note 7There can be a great variety of form within a piece of work.

Keeping the rhythm consistent can help the look and overall legibility of a piece.

Delphi 16

Delphi 17

Spaccanapoli, Naples city centre

Naples

Flying from Athens to Naples, I moved from the Greek Empire to the Roman Empire and alphabet with which I am so familiar with.I stayed for 12 nights in Naples and loved it, a vibrant city and a great base for exploring all sorts of different museums, and archaeological sites. While I was here I visited;

Capodimonte MuseumCastel NuovoMuseo San ServernoNaples Archaeological MuseumSanta Chiara ChurchGesù NuovoFlavian Amphitheatre, PozzuoliGallerie D’ItaliaPompeiiCastel Sant’ElmoNapoli SotterraneaDiocesan MuseumSan Lorenzo MaggioreHerculaneumPaestum site and Museum

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Pompeii

Pompeii was high up on my list of places to visit because I had heard about its famous examples of brush lettering many

years ago as a student. Easily accessible from Naples by the Circumvesuviana train line, Pompeii is a massive site, and even

a whole day spent there was not enough to see everything.

Captured in time due by the volcanic eruption of mount Vesuvius in AD 79, Pompeii quickly helps you to understand

just how sophisticated life in the Roman era was. The town and houses are full of colour and art making our modern lives

look surprisingly dull in comparison.

There was a great deal of lettering for me to see, from carved formal inscriptions, large scale letters carved into stone,

monuments and mausoleums, letters were everywhere in daily life in Pompeii. As hoped, there were plenty of examples of

brush lettering to examine as it was used for a variety of every day political slogans, shop details and lists. Most often

on the outside walls of the buildings and painted directly into the wet render and it was therefore amazing to see it so well

preserved almost 2000 years later. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of what will permanent in my own lettering

marks.

This Image on the right clearly showing how the brush was used to create the serifs, the line of text underneath in a very

different style to the big letters above, using a much more calligraphic approach. I love the tapering arms on the large E

Brush lettering on the walls of a building in Pompeii 19

Very narrow brush lettering on the walls of a building in Pompeii 20

Image of inscription carving, from the amphitheatre, Pompeii 21

Pompeii Continued.

The carving (left and above), in the amphitheatre is a good ex-ample of a carved inscription created by someone who prob-ably had some limited skills but not a refined understanding. However, there is still a lot about it that I liked because the overall feel of the stone is unmistakeably handmade by someone who took as much care as they were able.It is difficult to know how much time was spent marking out the layout, or even how it was done. The forms do not suggest a brush base, and the lettering at the top starts out bigger than at the bottom and starts to get more squashed towards the right hand side of the stone.

If you look carefully (image to the left), it is possible to see the chisel marks made by the maker almost 2000 years ago. Almost exactly as I would leave in my own carvings today, suggesting that techniques have not changed very much in all this time, I felt a great connection with the maker when I saw this.

Note 8Do not be afraid to get stuck in as it is only by understanding the material and how it behaves is it possible to become confident.

Detail of inscription carving, Pompeii 22

Flavian Amphitheatre, Pozzuoli

This is the third largest Amphitheatre in Italy and an easy train journey from Naples and unlike Pompeii and other well known archaeological sites, it was virtually empty of other tourists. I chose to visit this site on a particularly hot day as I knew that a lot of the site was under the shelter of the amphitheatre floor and provided some much needed shade and a cool retreat in the heat of the day. There was a great deal of lettering here, many stele and funerary objects, but also some fragments of some large scale incised letters, perhaps for decorative and informative display. These fragments where scattered over an area at the back of the amphitheatre, apparently discarded and covered in dust. There was a great pleasure for me in discovering them, amongst them I found very interesting examples of very tiny incised Roman lettering. This was the first time I had come across this style of carved Roman lettering, most of the Greek inscriptions as previously noted, were very small, but all of the Roman carvings I had seen had been much, much larger. Throughout my trip I saw very few similar sized carved letters using the Roman alphabet.

Detail from my sketch book, underneath the amphitheatre, Pozzuoli. 23

Stele, PozzuoliThis carving was unusual due to the tiny size of the Roman

letters. The letter-forms appear influenced by a written script rather than a formal brush drawn letter. I was surprised how

legible the letters were at this size, and the completely different rhythm it created compared to the small Greek

inscriptions I had previously seen.

Stele with very small Roman letters carved into it.

Detail of very small Roman letters

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Fragments of stone covered in dust and abandoned in the alcoves at Pozzuoli. 25

Florence

After the chaos of Naples, the streets of Florence seemed a world away. Huge crowds of tourists, and with them, great queues. At first I thought I had perhaps made a mistake coming here given my limited time, but, the museums, galleries and sites where definitely worth queuing for.

Florence was the centre of the lettering revival in Italy during the Renaissance, and the style of letter is dramatically different to the ancient Roman forms. These letters must have looked very modern when they were first seen and I loved the fact that they had been rediscovered and redefined to fit in with the art and architecture happening at the time. I came across many of these letters and inscriptions in the churches and streets in Florence – and although it was not initially what I had set out to see, I couldn’t help but be inspired by seeing the history of lettering development over the ages it was a reminder to embrace reinvention and new rules.

I also went took the opportunity to see Ghilberti’s Gates of Heaven in the Baptistry which I had spent years looking at in books - this was a huge privilege. In Florence I visited;

Amphitheatre, archaeological site and Museum at FiesoleFlorence archaeological museum,Uffizi MuseumPalozzo PittiIl Duomo, Battistero di San Giovanni,Santa Croce,Santa Maria NovellaPisa - Camposanto Monumentale

Detail of a medieval plaque set into a street wall in Florence 26

Uffizi Museum

The Uffizi museum was well worth getting up early for to avoid the queues. It’s a big museum with a large collection of

artefacts, artworks and architecture to explore. It houses a surprising collection of Roman inscriptions dotted around the

many galleries. Unfortunately, as in a number of the museums I visited, many of these inscriptions have in the past (as must have been the

fashion) been crudely painted in red or black paint.The painting is rarely done sensitively and often changes the

true nature of the letters. In the unnatural lighting in the museums, it is often difficult to make out the true cut of the

letters. A reminder of how important it is to see lettering in its original location as often as possible.

The stone to the right shows how the letters have been painted, you need to look really carefully to see the shapes of

the original cut. The Y shape is reminiscent of similar letters from the Greek carvings and the K shape is very unusual, over-

all there is a lively feel to the forms and rhythm in this inscription. As was often the case with the inscriptions, no

notes were present to identify this stone.

Note 9Take time to really look at and consider what is

in front of you and not be deceived by your first impressions.

Stone inscription numbered 179, Uffizi Museum Florence 27

Detail - Roman Art, Funerary Cippus of Q. Coelius Actiacus, End of the 1st Century B.CLime stone Provenance: Detlef Heikamp Gift (1994), from Monselice (Padua),

Oddi Collection. 28

Fiesole Museum

The amphitheatre, site and museum at Fiesole are well worth the easy bus journey out of Florence. The museum has a large collection of Etruscan as well as Roman items.

The image left shows an Etruscan boundary stone. The letters run from right to left and have a runic look to them. I discovered that the Etruscan alphabet developed from a western variety of the Greek alphabet brought to Italy by Greeks.

These letters seem crude in comparison to the Roman and Greek alphabets. With very few curves, the mono-line letters have a very linear feel. What was interesting about almost all of the Etruscan lettering was how unimportant it seemed, often scratched, painted or carved without any obvious effort to make it beautiful, even when on a beautiful object where every other aspect was very carefully considered.

Inv. n. 4. Fiesole MuseumEtruscan boundary stone from Villa Marchi, Fiesole2 Century BC

Etruscan Tomb, carved and painted, no details Fiesole museum

Examples of Etruscan tombs, both carved and painted with a small band of painted lettering at the top of the stone.In each case the lettering seems to be applied freely and di-rectly. I was struck by how unimportant the lettering is here there seems to be no desire to make it beautiful or part of the over-all design.

Note 10Context is always important - lettering can easily look like an after thought rather than an integral piece of the work.

Etruscan Tomb, carved and painted, no details Florence Archaeological Museum

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Rome

I stayed in Rome for just over 2 weeks, there was so much to see and do here, I could come back again and again. The historic centre and archaeological sites around are full of many examples of lettering, there are an endless selection of museums and ancient churches to visit.While I was here I visited;

The Colosseum,Roman Forum, Basilica San Giovanni in LateranoCapitaline Museum, St Marcellino ChurchS Clemente Church and Catacombs, The Etruscan MuseumSan Maria Maggiore, Via Attica Antica, Catacomb of Calistica,Vatican Museums, St Peter’s BasilicaOstia AnticaSt Maria Maggiore, San Vitale, Santa Maria dei MontiSant’Angelo CastleNational Roman Museum, Massimo, Epigraphic, Crypta BabaMAXXI

Mosaic Roof in Santa Maria in Laterano, Rome 30

National Roman Museum

The National Roman Museum has several branches in separate buildings throughout the city, I visited all them but

picked out for a couple of visits the excellent Baths of Diocletian where the Epigraphic collection is housed with a wide variety of objects in glass, metal, clay and stone all

of which incorporate lettering. There is also a large external courtyard with a huge collection of inscriptions.

The carving on the right is unusual in its very flat and graphic style. It is a very small fragment from a very large map of the

city of Rome. It is noticeable how the lettering is made to fit in with the design, rather than the design fit around the lettering,

however, the forms are still carefully drawn and carved.

The image below is of a detail of an inscription in the courtyard at the National Roman Museum. I liked the formality

of the letters combined with the informality and joyful nature of the two Y. This carving has clearly being done by someone

who has a very clear understanding of lettering, but at the same time has allowed an freedom to come through.

Note 11Lettering often takes second place in terms of its importance in a document, piece of work etc. It is essential to understand

how to accommodate text successfully into a design.

Note 12Allowing personal style and freedom to occasionally escape

in an otherwise more formal inscription, gives life, movement and a feeling of the hand made to a piece of work. Caption on a map - A fragment of a map of Rome, Forma Urbis from the

Antica Way, 203 - 2011AD

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Unmarked carving from the National Roman Museum, Epigraphic Collection. 32

Funerary slab, Rome, Via Prenesina, near Villa dei Gordiani525AD

National Museum Rome

The image right shows a detail of a memorial slab to a maidservant of Christ.

The text is lain with symbols of the latin cross and of a palm.

I think this is a beautiful example of a playful approach. The tiny O and the tight narrow spacing between the letters and high waisted R and P, gives a very specific feel to the inscrip-tion. It looks naive, but there is still an understanding of text

as pattern.

Note 13Text can be about pattern making, and any number of

patterns are possible

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Funerary Stele of Lucios Aelios Melitinos, Rome, Via Tiburtina, 2C ADCapitoline Museum, Rome

Capitoline Museum Rome

This is a beautiful memorial stone carved in Greek. The letters get smaller and smaller as the inscription goes down the stone and the lines begin to rise to the upper right on the bottom lines - suggesting a direct approach. This stone says:

‘For the souls departed. The sorrowful parents Pelicula and Myron saw to (the making of this tomb) for their sweet son Lucios Aelios Melitinos (who) lived 13 months and 9 days. Do not violate (this) tomb and may this not happen in the future with your children. That you not molest, nor permit the molestation of this tomb and be careful of the urn that lie (here)

I saw a great many memorial stones on my trip, I was surprised just how far back the tradition of remembering and immortalising our loved ones in stone stretches back. Seeing all of this really helped me to understand the tradition that I work in, not just in terms of lettering, but also in human terms.

Lesson 15Be aware of the tradition that you work within and the role and context it plays in society. Making memorials can capture the struggle of human existence, love and loss throughout time.

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Summary

I had set off in the hope of seeing lettering beyond the scope of my formal, Trajen based training, influenced by Eric Gill and David Kindersley. To date, my education had not focused on Greek lettering and inscriptions or the wide variety of Roman

lettering that I had understood existed but had never had the opportunity to visit.

I wanted to see first hand, the visible marks left by the makers 1000s of years ago, the movement of letters across an inscription

in their original context and to see how an ancient maker used, played and understood the shapes of the alphabet that we still

use today.

Seeing so much of the original work in such a concentrated way has given me an understanding and overview of my craft.

Focusing for such an intense period of time on such a huge variety of original sources of lettering has been hugely

inspirational and allowed me to develop a much greater over-view of my craft and this in turn has enabled me to place my

current practice in an historical context.I saw a wide range of different lettering on a variety of different

materials, from early Greek to Roman Republican to Roman Imperialism, but also, more unexpectedly, later medieval and renaissance lettering. I was struck by the constant themes of

reinvention of the letter-forms through out different times, each reflection the period they were created in.

I saw how Greek lettering influenced the Roman alphabet, but also importantly, in later Greek lettering, influences of Roman styles appear, especially in the serif endings. I found everywhere I was able to see a playful and joyful approach where carvers/ scribes/artists felt able to experiment with forms and styles - this was especially evident in the many different serif endings I came across.I was particularly inspired by the way the Greeks used text as pattern as part of a wider architectural strategy. A grand state-ment or a subtle story to be discovered, sometimes poetic, sometimes prosaic, but always part of a wider pattern and part of the fabric of the architecture. The original makers marks has made me think very much about how I practice and teach my craft. I have tried through this report to begin to distil some key lessons that are about a free and di-rect approach to carving lettering in stone, that could be used to inspire students and apprentices to have fun exploring lettering afresh and without constraint. Its about building confidence early on and inspiring learners of all abilities to take chances and to take joy out of the many endless possibilities to play with letters, to make patters in stone.

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Christian Carvings from The Christian Lapidary Gallery, The Vatican, Rome 36