Palatino is an old-style

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

Hermann Zapf Hermann Zapf (; 8 November 1918 – 4 June 2015) was a German type designer and calligrapher who lived in Darmstadt, Germany. He was married to the calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Typefaces he designed include ...

, initially released in 1949 by the Stempel foundry and later by other companies, most notably the

Mergenthaler Linotype Company The Mergenthaler Linotype Company was a company founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine (), a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufacturer ...

. Palatino is optimised for legibility with open counters, balanced proportions, moderate stroke contrast and flared serifs.

Background

Named after the 16th-century Italian master of

calligraphy Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...

Giambattista Palatino, Palatino is based on the humanist types of the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...

, which mirror the letters formed by a broad nib pen reflecting Zapf's expertise as a

calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

. Its capital 'Y' is in the unusual 'palm Y' style, inspired by the Greek letter

upsilon Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the twentieth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value of 400. It is derived from the phoenician alphabet, Phoenician Waw (letter), waw ...

, a trait found in some of the earliest versions of the letter such as that of

Aldus Manutius Aldus Pius Manutius (; ; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and Renaissance humanism, humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preser ...

. Unlike most Renaissance typeface revivals, which tend to have delicate proportions such as a low

x-height upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the le ...

(short lower-case letters and longer ascenders and

descender In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a grapheme that extends below the Baseline (typography), baseline of a typeface, font. For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal li ...

s), Palatino has larger proportions, increasing legibility. Palatino was particularly intended as a design for trade or 'jobbing' use, such as headings, advertisements and display printing, and was created with a solid, wide structure and wide apertures that could appear clearly on poor-quality paper, when read at a distance or printed at small sizes. Palatino is one of several related typefaces by Zapf, which Stempel marketed as an "extended family". The group includes Palatino, Sistina, Michelangelo, and Aldus; Zapf's biographer Jerry Kelly describes them as forming "the largest type family based on classic renaissance forms at the time." These designs were strongly influenced by Italian Renaissance letter forms and

Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called ''capitalis monumentalis'', inscriptional capitals, elegant capitals and ''capitalis quadrata'', are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. Square capitals are characterized ...

, although Zapf was unable to visit Italy until after he had finished the Palatino roman. Palatino rapidly became popular for book body text use, overshadowing the narrower and lighter Aldus, which Zapf had designed for this role. It has been described as one of the ten most used serif typefaces. Since Palatino was not originally designed for body text, some of its characters were intended to stand out with quirky, calligraphic design features, and Zapf later redesigned them with more sober alternates, which have become the norm on most digital versions. Linotype licensed Palatino to Adobe and Apple who incorporated it into the

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...

digital printing technology as a standard font. This guaranteed its importance in digital and

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online co ...

and made it (or a variant of it) a preinstalled font on most computers. As with many popular fonts, knockoff designs and rereleases under different names are common. Zapf retained an interest in the design, and continued to collaborate on new versions into his eighties.

Palatino family

Palatino

Palatino itself, as previously noted, has a solid structure, intended to read clearly on poor-quality paper and printing. Zapf's friend Alexander Lawson wrote that "the open counters that make Palatino such a legible letter were provided to overcome a then current printing problem in Germany, poor-quality paper. The weight of the type was also thickened beyond that of a normal roman in order to adapt to the lithographic and gravure printing processes of that period. Zapf has steadily maintained that he did not create Palatino as a book type but rather as a commercial face." Palatino Swash Initials

Due to Palatino's increasing popularity in body text, multiple versions have been released for the changing technologies of handsetting, hot metal typesetting,

phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of Typesetting, setting type which uses photography to make columns of Sort (typesetting), type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publ ...

and digital font design. Later versions often have regularised details such as a lower 't' and foot serifs on 'p' and 'q'. The italic in particular has gone through several redesigns, with the original for hand-set foundry type being distinctly narrow, the version for the Linotype machine distinctly wide to enable duplexing with the roman, and the versions for subsequent photosetting and digital technologies being in between the two extremes. Hutner and Kelly have described Palatino as "distinctly modern... a modern type not copied from any specific early model." Palatino's italic in metal type included a set of swash capitals. These have not been found in digitisations, although digitisations of Zapf's Renaissance Antiqua design (discussed below) do include a (slightly different) set. Later versions alter the descenders on many letters; Zapf originally had to keep these short to fit on the German common line standard, optimised for blackletter typefaces; later versions escape this restriction.

Aldus

Aldus is an old-style serif design, popular for use in book printing. Compared to Palatino, released some years earlier, it has a more condensed design lighter in

colour Color (or colour in Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorp ...

, more graceful and refined and better suited to the high average quality of book printing. Aldus has a non-kerning

roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

and italic ''f'', allowing the typographer to avoid ligatures. It appeared in the D. Stempel AG catalog in 1954 and Zapf used it to set his own ''Manuale Typographicum'', a history of letter design. Aldus is named for the Venetian Renaissance printer

. The decision annoyed Zapf (who preferred the name "Palatino Book") since it bears little direct resemblance to Aldus's typefaces. Like Palatino, an upgraded digitisation, Aldus Nova, has been released by Linotype.

Michelangelo

A set of titling capitals, based on

. The design has a 'U' with a foot serif at bottom right, a 'double-V'-style 'W' with four top terminals and a 'palm Y' similar to that on Palatino, inspired by the Greek letter

. It was renamed "Palatino Titling" in the Palatino nova release (see below), since the rights to the name were held by Berthold who also published a digitisation.

Sistina

A slightly bolder set of titling capitals than Michaelangelo on the same basic structure. It was originally named 'Aurelia Titling' after the

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

named Via Aurelia; Zapf would later use the name for another separate font. The Palatino nova version (see below) is renamed "Palatino Imperial" and has

small capitals In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used in running ...

as a lower case. It was created following an artistically productive 1950 visit to Italy, which Zapf had been unable to visit before. Zapf was very interested in the quality of Italian art and lettering, and his sketches of stonecarving in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

also inspired the humanist

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

Optima Optima is a Humanist sans-serif, humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals s ...

Kompakt

An ultra-bold display type, with a slight slope but roman rather than italic letter forms. Unlike Palatino, it is very unlike the style of

roman type In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of Typeface, historical type, alongside blackletter and Italic type, italic. Sometimes called normal or regular, it is distinct from these two for its upright style (relative to the ...

printing used during the Renaissance, which did not use

bold type In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech. Methods and use The most common methods in We ...

Zapf Renaissance Antiqua (1984–1986)

Not part of Stempel's metal Palatino family, Zapf Renaissance Antiqua is a separate interpretation by Zapf of the same Renaissance models dating to 1984–1986, initially created for Scangraphic and later digitised and sold by Linotype along with Palatino. Compared to Palatino, Zapf Renaissance Antiqua has greater stroke contrast, which carries through to the sharp serifs and wedge-like punctuation marks, but it also features smoother transitions between thick and thin strokes. It is also notable for including a full set of swash letterforms, with as many as five variants of each lowercase letter – something not included on digital versions of Palatino. According to Linotype the currently available digitisation is based on the versions prepared by Scangraphic for display use, with tight spacing and striking contrasts in stroke weight. A version marketed under the name “Zapf Renaissance Antiqua SB” contains these same high-contrast letterforms, but with looser spacing for running text. However, some typographers have criticized the poor quality of the spacing in all available digitizations, attributing it to an inaccurate conversion from its original, proprietary digital format into PostScript.

Variants and similar typefaces

Digitisations

Palatino's early digitisation intended for PostScript use is very widely used or cloned. Later Palatino digitisations have different features and spacing. In 1999, Zapf revised Palatino for Linotype and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, called Palatino Linotype. The revised family incorporated extended

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, and

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

character sets. Linotype released a more complex redesign named Palatino Nova, together with digitisations of some of Zapf's other Renaissance-inspired designs and Aldus. Zapf also created a matching Palatino Sans and Palatino Sans Informal design in 2006.

Palatino Linotype

Palatino Linotype is the version of the Palatino family included with modern versions of Microsoft software. It incorporates extended Latin, Greek, Cyrillic characters, as well as currency signs, subscripts and superscripts, and fractions. The family includes roman and italic in text and bold weights. Palatino Linotype was notable as being the first western

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...

font that Microsoft shipped; Palatino Linotype was bundled with

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

. The OpenType version showcased some (then new) alternate features, including ligatures, true

small caps In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are grapheme, characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used i ...

proportional and tabular figures Proportionality, proportion or proportional may refer to: Mathematics * Proportionality (mathematics), the property of two variables being in a multiplicative relation to a constant * Ratio, of one quantity to another, especially of a part compare ...

text figures Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...

and a variety of special alternate characters, such as the swash Capital Qu combination. This marks it out from earlier digitisations such as the

OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

system version, which do not include ligatures such as ''Th'' and ''Qu''. On release it was one of the few fonts to incorporate an interrobang.

Palatino Nova

Palatino Nova is a redesigned version of Palatino, by Hermann Zapf and Akira Kobayashi. This Palatino Nova typeface family includes roman and italics in the light, text, medium, and bold weights, a new release of Aldus and versions of Michelangelo and Sistina under the name of "Palatino Titling" and "Palatino Imperial". The font family was premiered on November 24, 2005, the same day as Hermann Zapf's 87th birthday celebration. A new digitisation of Aldus named Aldus nova was created at the same time.

Palatino Sans

Palatino Sans is a sans-serif design with stroke width modulation, resembling Zapf's classic design

but with a softer, more organic feel. Unlike the serifed counterpart, the Sans families do not have full Greek or Cyrillic characters. Reviewing it for ''Typographica'' on release, font designer Hrant Papazian commented:

The confluence of competence, freedom and kiai... evident in Palatino Sans is breathtaking. The sober organicity, the bravado of the raised 'r', the confident flair of the italic; all done before, but never in such a usable, contemporary whole.

Palatino Sans Informal

Palatino Sans Informal incorporates informal characteristics to the Palatino Sans, such as asymmetrical A, K, N, W, X, Y, w.

Palatino Arabic

It is a family designed by Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine and Hermann Zapf. The design is based on the Al-Ahram typeface designed by Zapf in 1956 but reworked and modified to fit the Palatino Nova family. The design is Naskh in style but with a strong influence of

Thuluth ''Thuluth'' (, ' or , '; , ''Sols''; Turkish: ''Sülüs'', from ' "one-third") is an Arabic script variety of Islamic calligraphy. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In ''Thuluth'', ...

style. This family only comes in 1 font, with the Latin characters based on Palatino Nova Regular. It supports basic Latin, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu scripts. Chahine also created a version of Zapf's Zapfino.

Palatino eText (2013)

It is a family designed by Toshi Omagari of Monotype Imaging, optimised for on-screen use. It includes a larger x-height and wider spacing. It is the standard four-font family, with bolds and italics.

Palatino clones

As one of the most iconic typefaces of the twentieth century, derivative designs based on Palatino were rapidly developed, taking advantage of the lack of practical copyright and the easy copying possible in the

font market of the 1960s and 70s onwards. Many of these are almost indistinguishable from Palatino, and some even had Zapf's involvement as a consultant.

Palazzo Original

Softmaker's clone of Palatino, Palazzo Original, is unique for being based on the original metal type of Palatino: as a result, it contains many design features not seen in the digital versions of Palatino endorsed by Zapf and most clones. These include a 'p' and 'q' without foot serif and no serif on the centre stroke of the 'E' and 'F', as well as a slightly more delicate design with a lower

. It has also been released as Marathon Serial without italics.

PostScript clones

Most modern Palatino clones are set to match the spacing and design of the PostScript version of Palatino that was a standard font in early digital publishing. In the

Bitstream A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...

font collection, the Palatino equivalent is called "Zapf Calligraphic". URW++ sells its version as "URW Palladio L". A version of this font was later released by URW under a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

licence as part of the

Ghostscript Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format (PDF) page description languages. Its main purposes are the rasterization of documents in these language,, the display or prin ...

project to develop an open-source alternative to PostScript. As a result, it (or a derivative) is used by much open-source software such as R as a system font. Palladio, however, lacks the subtle stroke modulation and rounded corners which can be found for example in Palatino Linotype.

Book Antiqua

One of the best-known Palatino PostScript clones is "Book Antiqua" (originally by

Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...

), distributed with much

software, beginning with

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. It is one of many clone PostScript typefaces distributed by Microsoft and Monotype around this time, including

Arial Arial is a sans-serif typeface in the Sans-serif#Neo-grotesque, neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 3.1, as well as in other Microsoft programs, Apple's macOS, and ma ...

(similar to

Helvetica Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely-used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the f ...

Century Gothic Century Gothic is a digital sans-serif typeface in the geometric style, released by Monotype Imaging in 1990. It is a redrawn version of Monotype's own Twentieth Century, a copy of Bauer's Futura, to match the widths of ITC Avant Garde Gothic ...

(ITC Avant Garde) and Bookman Old Style ( ITC Bookman). Book Antiqua resembles Palatino extremely closely and is almost indistinguishable from the original apart from a few detail differences. (" Antiqua" is another word for the "

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

" style of typefaces that Palatino is based on, as opposed to

blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter or black-letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for ...

. The genre, inspired by Italian traditions of handwriting and calligraphy, has been a dominant influence on most typefaces and lettering created in the Western world since the Renaissance.) In 1993, Zapf resigned from l'Association Typographique Internationale ( ATypI) over what he viewed as its hypocritical attitude toward unauthorized copying by prominent ATypI members (namely

). In the United States, the abstract design of a typeface is not protected by copyright, and can be imitated freely (unless the typeface is protected by a design patent, which is of much more limited duration and rarely applied for). Copyright protection is available for the representation of a typeface in software (a computer font), and the names of typefaces can be protected by trademark. Microsoft has since licensed and distributes Linotype's version of Zapf's original design called ''Palatino Linotype'' in all versions of

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

since

. During the Palatino Linotype development process, Zapf and Linotype requested that Microsoft cease to include Book Antiqua with Office, but Microsoft concluded that this was impossible as too many documents had already been created using it. A custom version of Book Antiqua was created by Monotype as a corporate font for the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

of the UK.

Free and open-source versions and derivatives

The first legal free version of Palatino was URW Palladio L. The open-source community greatly extended the character sets of the fonts and releases new, updated versions under new names. *FPL Neu is a typeface based on ''URW Palladio L'' font. It has both

and lining figures. It is available both in Type 1 format and

format. *TeX Gyre Pagella is another similar typeface based on the ''URW Palladio L'' font. Pagella includes accents for European languages as well as glyphs for a few non-European languages. This typeface is released in formats compatible with

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

as well as with modern

compatible systems. It is a part of the TeX Gyre project to make updated, expanded, OpenType versions of URW's open-source fonts. *Domitian is a typeface based on ''URW Palladio L'' font released recently in 2020. It was meant to be a drop in of Adobe Palatino, and extends more characters on top of Palladio. Asana Math is an OpenType mathematical font designed to look like Palatino (so that math can visually match the text). It is based on the Type 1 ''pxfonts'' by Young Ryu.

Awards

Palatino Sans and Palatino Sans Informal won Type Directors Club Type Design Competition 2007 award under Type System / Superfamily category. Palatino Arabic won 2008 Type Directors Club TDC2 2008 award under Text / Type Family category.