“Of what shall we say that the Beautiful consist? Perhaps of two things in particular: harmony which satisfies the spirit by enabling it to recognize that all individual parts of a work are subordinated to a complete idea; it also consists of proportions which please the eye or rather the imagination, for the imagination contains within itself certain definite ideas or images, and the more that which is perceived coincides with them, the greater the pleasure one takes in it.”

—Giambattista Bodoni, from his Manuale Tipografico; quoted by Albert Kapr in The Art of Lettering; The History, Anatomy, and Aesthetics of the Roman Letter Forms, 1983.