Etruscan was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Latium, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania). Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek, or Phoenician; and a few dozen loanwords. Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been a source of long-running speculation and study, with its being referred to at times as an isolate, one of the Tyrsenian languages, and a number of other less well-known theories. The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was a Pre–Indo-European,and a Paleo-European language and is closely related to the Raetic language spoken in the Alps, and to the Lemnian language, attested in a few inscriptions on Lemnos. Grammatically, the language is agglutinating, with nouns and verbs showing suffixed inflectional endings and gradation of vowels. Nouns show five cases, singular and plural numbers, with a gender distinction between animate and inanimate in pronouns. Etruscan appears to have had a cross-linguistically common phonological system, with four phonemic vowels and an apparent contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops. The records of the language suggest that phonetic change took place over time, with the loss and then re-establishment of word-internal vowels, possibly due to the effect of Etruscan's word-initial stress. Etruscan religion influenced that of the Romans, and many of the few surviving Etruscan language artifacts are of votive or religious significance.

a tuscan experimentation

classic wood type tuscan digitization font

Font Etruria is based on a real Etruscan inscriptions and realistic accurately simulates the writing of the Etruscans. The idea of the font Etruria is to give an opportunity for anyone to touch the past of mankind! The character of the Etruscan alphabet involves the creation of a font with only uppercase letters. However, I did not limit this font by that. Etruria has not only a lowercase is different from uppercase, but an additional sets of alternative characters. In General, the main characteristic of Etruscan writing is randomness and diversity of characters. Differs from lowercase to uppercase is only the first step on the road to make randomness effect. Next to the aid of the OT features. To recreate the randomness effect, in Etruria there are several OT features (Contextual Alternates, Stylistic Alternates and Stylistic Sets), which built a script to simulate randomness. Additionally, another script creates the effect of random positioning. Together they create incredibly realistic Etruscan inscription. Thus, any of these features can be disabled at will. I also used a small line spacing, because it is characteristic of the Etruscan writing. Actually the Etruscan writings is a mirror of the writings compared with the current European alphabets. I didn't use this feature all the letters, because this would make the font difficult to perceive, but to make the font characteristic of the Etruscan style, Etruria has a few letters in mirror image. However, if for someone it may seem unusual, mirrored letters can be disabled instead of them will appear more familiar to them. Another feature of Etruscan writing is the use instead of a space dotacentered. Font Etruria has this feature, there is a OT feature Stylistic set ss03. Naturally, it also can optionally be disabled. All these features can be used together, separately, or turn it off. The main goal achieved! The text typed in Etruria, creates full impression of these Etruscan inscriptions.

Xyla is a tuscan/blackletter mixed font style.

Free interpretation of the classic Gothic Tuscan 1, by William Hamilton Page.

Regina is a calligraphic-influenced hybrid light-face Tuscan-serif roman with a companion swash italic.

Tuscaloosa is a hybrid script that includes Tuscan (bifurcated) serif treatments. The design of Tuscaloosa began as a set of organically-formed initials, the Tuscan serifs being reminiscent of shoots and leaves bursting forth. Tuscaloosa also derives inspiration from the late Victorian era, when the development of newspaper and poster advertising led to extremes of weight in the main strokes. The font is intended to convey an aura of excitement and fun that characterized those times! The name 'Tuscaloosa' was chosen because of the appropriate combination of 'Tuscan' and 'looseness,' and because of its essentially American character.

A typical set of American Tuscan capitals cast by ATF in the middle of the nineteenth century.

MalitiaVetus is a decorative blackletter font with influences of Old English, Lombardic and Tuscan styles. Is perfect to create authentic medieval documents

Although this font resembles the FontMesa High noon font a closer look reveals much more rounded serifs to this Antique Tuscan font.

MalitiaVetus is a decorative blackletter font with influences of Old English, Lombardic and Tuscan styles. Is perfect to create authentic medieval documents

Mud Creek JNL is based on Tuscan Egyptian – a classic wood type with a decidedly Western feel, and is available in both regular and oblique versions

The antique wood type Gothic Tuscan [a spurred design with rounded terminals] was the basis for Roundwood JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Concave Tuscan Extra Condensed is a classic wood type sans serif design that is the basis for Table Wood JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

"Choco Bro" is a cute and chubby display font characterized by truncated or shortened characters. Fonts with truncated characters often feature letterforms where certain parts are cut off or abbreviated, giving them a unique and distinctive appearance. This font can be a delightful choice for various design projects, especially those targeting children's themes or playful designs. The truncated characters add a quirky and playful touch to the font, making it suitable for posters, invitations, children's books, or any project that aims for a fun and whimsical typographic style.

Winnetka JNL was inspired by Cooley Antique Tuscan Condensed - a printer's wood type manufactured in 1859 by J.G. Cooley. Given an additional hand-made treatment, the lettering resembles characters made from cut paper.

Sasparillo is an "extreme" Tuscan face, with reversed emphasis, by which we mean the horizontals are far heavier than the verticals. Recreate the spirit of the "Wild West" with a sense of fun!

Hand drawn, photocopied, scanned, printed and rescanned x 3.

Pickfair JNL is based on the vintage wood type Vandenburgh Tuscan (circa 1867), and gets its name from the mansion owned by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford—two of the founding partners of United Artists movie studios.

Doge’s Venezia is one of a set of four typefaces, the others being Doge’s Delight, Doge’s Darker and Doge’s Banner. Together they make up a splendid family of Victorian inspired Tuscan faces, allowing for an integrated design approach.

Doge’s Darker is one of a set of four typefaces, the others being Doge’s Delight, Doge’s Banner and Doge’s Venezia. Together they make up a splendid family of Victorian inspired Tuscan faces, allowing for an integrated design approach.

Tuscan Extended, from the William H. Page 1872 specimen book, provided the pattern for this unusual in-your-face face. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1262, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Doge’s Delight is one of a set of four typefaces, the others being Doge’s Darker, Doge’s Banner and Doge’s Venezia. Together they make up a splendid family of Victorian inspired Tuscan faces, allowing for an integrated design approach.

Doge’s Banner is one of a set of four typefaces, the others being Doge’s Delight, Doge’s Darker and Doge’s Venezia. Together they make up a splendid family of Victorian inspired Tuscan faces, allowing for an integrated design approach.

Athabasca is "Wild West" Tuscan on steroids. Remember those stylised tall and narrow typefaces that used to appear in Wild West comics, Western movies, "Wanted" posters and so forth? Well, here’s a new, 2017 released take on the idea. Have fun!

Based on one of the earliest Tuscans, from Thorowgood's foundry. The original was very poorly rendered in 1822, but keep in mind that decorative types were still quite new in the early 1800s. We redrew it, but kept it recognizable.

From an old wood type owned by a San Francisco printer. Wood types were customarily given somewhat generic names (Antique Tuscan) or, more frequently, numbers to identify them. Our clients liked colorful, easily-remembered names better, and so did we.

With Royale, Resistenza reinvents the bifurcated Tuscan genre in a contemporary, warm and playful form. Royale Basic doesn't include ligatures or alternates. Rounded terminals, fabulous fancy fun spurs with elegant and extravagant flourishing - Royale comes in 8 weights and 4 widths which can also be layered to create polychromatic effects in another nod to the Victorian era these styles were popularised. While inspired by days gone past this Royale is far from a revival as unlike the classic Tuscans which inspired its structure Royale is monoline and sophisticated in its simplicity. Perfect for display and emphasis, Royale will command attention and leave a memorable impression wherever it is used.

Eccles is another of our 'Early Victorian' typefaces, a series we started with the Wolverhampton family a little while ago. It might be described as 'extreme-Tuscan' in style but has a delicacy that many other Tuscan faces seem to lack. It's ideal for giving design projects a clear period feel, particularly in design and advertising work. We also see it having considerable application in preparing invitations to a certain type of happy event. At the other extreme, some of our younger associates have described it as 'your latest Steampunk font'. So perhaps we'll just have to settle on it having a split personality...

Praitor is based on a devotional inscription to the goddess Diana found a short distance from Rome in 1887. It is an early style from before 100 BC and has some characteristics of Etruscan lettering. It's a rough, strong font which works very well for distinctive titles.

Here's an unusual take on the classic Tuscan face of the 1880s. The unusual finials lend a slightly spooky feel to the face, hence its current name. Both versions support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Town Meeting JNL (available in both regular and oblique versions) is a modified version of Mud Creek JNL (which was based on Tuscan Egyptian – a classic wood type). The side spurs were removed and the split serifs were replaced by slab serifs.

Introducing High Noon; this very old font originally known as Antique Tuscan dates back into the 1800s and was available only as an uppercase font. Now with the addition of a new never-before-seen lowercase you'll find new uses for this old classic.

Mesquite is a narrow Tuscan-style typeface designed at Adobe in 1990. Like older Tuscans from the 19th Century, Mesquite has elaborate, creative serif treatments-although the serifs are so unique that it is difficult to call them serifs anymore, they are more like pointy finials. A convex-concave-convex ornamental feature appears on the middle of each vertical and diagonal stroke. Together with the serifs" at the tops and bottoms of each stroke, this feature creates a "tri-band" pattern over text set in Mesquite. Mesquite is not a text face. Aside from its narrowness and decorative qualities, Mesquite has no lowercase. The font's uppercase glyphs have been directly copied and placed in the lowercase range."

This is a simplified Tuscan, free from excessive ruffles and flourishes. Types of this general design began to appear in profusion in the 1830, and continued as a popular form until the end of the nineteenth century. We added the lowercase to this one for increased usefulness.

This is our name for Antique Tuscan, of which there were many variations. This font came from a large lot purchased around 1970 from an east coast newspaper shop. Subsequently, we acquired several more versions of the face, but this one had lowercase so we used it.

With Royale, Resistenza reinvented the bifurcated Tuscan genre in a contemporary, warm and playful form. Now our aim was to complete this decorative family with an italic version of the font. Rounded terminals, fabulous fancy fun spurs with elegant and extravagant flourishing - Royale italic comes in 8 weights which can also be layered to create polychromatic effects in another nod to the Victorian era these styles were popularised. While inspired by days gone past this Royale is far from a revival as unlike the classic Tuscans which inspired its structure Royale is monoline and sophisticated in its simplicity. Perfect for display and emphasis, Royale will command attention and leave a memorable impression wherever it is used. Check out also Royale

Poblano is a masterfully designed flared typeface, inspired by Gothic Tuscan that incorporates an aura of modern fun and classic southwest whimsy. With serifs that embody the beautiful, natural curve of the Poblano Pepper, it captures the pepper’s essence and attitude of having the perfect amount of piquant heat. Perfectly suited for menus, headlines, and logos, Poblano will be the ideal garnish to complete and elevate your food, rustic, grunge and hipster themed designs. The Poblano menu includes: • A range of styles from elegantly thin to boastful black • Over 400 glyphs per weight • More than 50 stylistic alternatives • Upper and lowercase characters • Uniquely stylized to elevate your design and add that finishing touch This is the ultimate niche solution to both display and functional Tuscan serif fonts.

Monoline Deco JNL is a thin, elegant typeface that is reminiscent of the Art Deco Streamline influence of the 1930s and 1940s, complete with angular and truncated characters.