An unexpected Greek typeface
In the course of updating the installation of the LaTeX typesetting system on my computer, I was randomly reading the supplied documentation and discovered a remarkable Greek typeface that I had never come across before. This typeface is most notable for its use in printed editions of the Philokalia, the great compendium of Orthodox teaching compiled between the 4th and 15th centuries. Here’s a sample of a passage from Aristotle’s Poetics from the documentation:
This typeface places accents after capital letters. Furthermore, it contains over 40 ligatures, many of which you wouldn’t be able to guess.
To those familiar with Greek manuscript writing and the introduction of printing to the Greek-speaking world, this is probably old-hat. But because my own studies of Greek have been limited to the classical canon typeset using standard typefaces like Porson and Lasergreek, I’ve never encounted this exotic writing system before, and a Greek original inspiration certainly helps explain the unnecessary flourishes of some printed Church Slavonic texts.
(For TeXnicians, the relevant package is Apostolos Syropoulos’ philokalia, supplied with XeTeX.)