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Nicolas Jenson began printing in Venice with his original roman font from 1470. Jenson’s design and the very similar roman types cut by Francesco Griffo ca. 1499 and Erhard Radolt ca. 1486 are acknowledged as the definitive and archetypal roman faces that set the pattern for the majority of western text faces that followed.

The Jenson roman

was an explicitly typographic letter designed on its own terms that declined to imitate the appearance of hand-lettering. Its effect is one of a unified cohesive whole, a seamless fusion of style with structure, and the successful convergence of the long progression of preceding letter styles. Jenson adapted the structural unity and component-based modular integration of Roman capitals to humanistic minuscule forms by masterful abstract stylization. The carefully-modelled serifs follow an artful logic of asymmetry. The ratio of extender lengths to letter bodies and the distance between lines results in balanced, harmonious body of type. Jenson also mirrors the ideal expressed in renaissance painting of carving up space (typographic “white space”) with figures (letters) to articulate the relationship between the two and make the white space dynamic.

The name “roman” is customarily applied

uncapitalized to distinguish early Jenson and Aldine-derived types from classical Roman letters of antiquity. Some parts of Europe call roman “antiqua” from its connection with the humanistic “lettera antica”; “medieval” and “old-style” are also employed to indicate roman types dating from the late 15th century, especially those used by Aldus Manutius (Italian: Manuzio). Roman faces based on those of Speyer and Jenson are also called Venetian.