Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi of Vicenza, a Vatican scribe experienced in calligraphy, publishes La Operina, a thirty-two-page woodblock printing, in 1522 as the first handwriting manual ever produced, based on the chancery italic, the favorite script of the cognoscenti.
This influential pamphlet, the first devoted to writing the italic script known as chancery cursive is the first of several such publications.
Very little is known of the circumstances of his life.
He may have started his career as a writing master in Venice, although this has been disputed.
A bookseller in Rome around 1510, he had been employed as a scribe at the Apostolic Chancery in 1515.
He will turn to printing in 1524 and design his own italic typefaces for his work, which will be widely emulated.
His last printing is dated shortly before the sack of Rome (1527), during which he is probably killed.
His letterforms will be revived in the twentieth century by designers such as Stanley Morison, Frederic Warde, Robert Slimbach (for example Adobe Jenson italic) and Jonathan Hoefler (in his Requiem Text typeface.)
