“[A]nother characteristic of Old Face [Old Style] is to be noted. All earlier scripts were single alphabet scripts. Only occasionally were larger letters from another script used as initials. Renaissance lettering paves the way for the two-alphabet script. The fact that our present alphabet goes back to two alphabets which date from different periods and are the outcome of different intellectual and technical conditions is essentially one of its drawbacks. The humanistic minuscule was originally a copy of the Carolingian minuscule, the versals a copy of the Roman capitals or Carolingian copies of them. The resulting dualism has never been overcome and is one of the most important formal problems in the entire history of lettering.”

—Albert Kapr, The Art of Lettering; The History, Anatomy, and Aesthetics of the Roman Letter Forms, 1983. Title page by Arkadia Trojankew, Moscow, 1972.