The term minuscule chancery script is used to describe the script, emerging between the late 13th and early 14th century, that was employed within chancery offices for the drafting of official documents, expressing the will of kings, emperors, popes, and bishops.
The minuscule chancery script originated from the littera minuta cursiva (Casamassima), an Italian invention of diplomatic writing that became highly renowned and appreciated throughout Europe.
With the spread of a private and secular educational system, the minuscule chancery script became the symbol of the cultured notarial class and was used for drafting texts in the vernacular, such as city chronicles or poetic compositions.
While ecclesiastical or university texts continued to prefer the Gothic script, the oldest Italian literary texts we have evidence of are written in minuscule chancery script, including at least forty manuscripts of Dante Alighieri’s works and the Chigian Canzoniere of Italian lyric poetry.
Petrarch contributed to the abandonment of Gothic script in Italy, advocating, along with Boccaccio, for a new writing style based on the recovery of the “ancient.”
Petrarch’s texts are therefore penned in minuscule chancery script, an elegant writing style with few ligatures and abbreviations, making it highly legible, characterized by delicate contrast and generous spacing.
Later, the author developed a form of writing that for a long time was credited to him as an invention, which we now call “semi-Gothic.” This would significantly contribute to the spread of classical culture and the birth of the Florentine Renaissance.
The Littera Minuta Cursiva
Between the late 12th and early 13th centuries, there was a graphic transformation of the Carolingian minuscule (the reference script of Charlemagne’s reign) that led to the birth of the littera minuta cursiva.
The demand for document production increased exponentially with the rise of new national and regional states, making the role of the notary of fundamental importance within medieval society.
Parchment, which was very expensive and mainly used for the drafting of books, was replaced by the more economical paper, an excellent medium for preliminary drafting of documents. The standardization of notarial writing, the variety of abbreviations, and especially the spread of vernacular literature contributed to the development of this new script.
The littera minuta cursiva is characterized by its pronounced roundness, forming letter connections with a reverse motion known as counterclockwise or “sinistral” (Costamagna). This innovative hand movement is the opposite of the motion that had previously characterized Roman cursive scripts, which ended their tracing “with a stroke upwards or towards the right center” and “almost all opened with a movement from bottom to top.”
This script is also marked by the presence of numerous “hooks” in the entrance and exit strokes of individual letters, the extension of the last stroke of i, m, and n downward when they appear at the end of a word, the use of figures executed in a single stroke for speed, such as the cursive a (preferred over the uncial type), and finally, the doubling of the vertical stroke of f,p, and s.
Due to the frequent movements of chancery personnel in the late Middle Ages, it is not possible to confirm the sharing of a single model of writing for document drafting, but we can affirm that the *minuta cursiva* began spreading in all chancery offices during those years, especially in papal (Alexander III, Innocent III, Honorius II) and imperial (registers of Frederick II) administrations.
Throughout the 13th century, the minuta cursiva extended to municipal and podestà offices. The vertical strokes began to incline to the left and lengthened compared to the central body of the letters in a 3:1 ratio. The hook of ascending and descending strokes elongated and flattened increasingly, foreshadowing what would later become the typical “flag loop” of the minuscule chancery script. The Scriptio continua (a script without word separation) was entirely abandoned in favor of greater legibility, accentuating the variants of letters at the beginning and end of words (e.g., the two *s*) and minimizing abbreviations.
Despite its pronounced roundness, this type of writing generally shows a certain Gothic taste, typical of the time, characterized by broken movements. The pen used for tracing the *minuta cursiva* was the same broad-nib pen of the *textualis* Gothic script, with which it also shared the chiaroscuro effect (the difference in thickness between thick and thin strokes) and its broken and oval curves rather than rounded and regular ones.
The Minuscule Chancery Script
At the end of the 13th century, the *minuta cursiva* reached its mature form and became the official script of the Papal chanceries (such as that of Boniface VIII). By the early 14th century, the term “Italian chancery script” was finally coined, as it became the most commonly used script for drafting documents (both administrative codes and vernacular texts), epistles, and municipal documents produced by the new social classes, such as notaries, judges, and merchants (who would later develop their own script, the *mercantesca*). Francesco Petrarca himself used it in his preparatory manuscript for the *Rerum vulgarium fragmenta*.
Read more by checking out the full article at https://scardillo.com/blog/la-minuscola-cancelleresca/
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