Bembo Fonts

The Bembo font family is classified as an Old-face; an Italian Old-face, to be more precise. It is characterized by full, generous forms, and is light in color as a page of text. The Bembo font family is a beautiful text face with classic style, and is a favorite for books, magazines, invitations, and other text applications.

Bembo Fonts

Bembo Packages

Bembo Font Family
Bembo 2 Family
Bembo Schoolbook Family

The origins of Bembo™ Font Family date back to the late fifteenth century, when artisans like Aldus Manutius and Francesco Griffo were producing work critical to the evolution of contemporary roman typography. It is characterized by full, generous forms, and is light in color as a page of text. The serifs are large but delicately bracketed and give the letters a sound base. The capital “N” and “U” are particularly wide, and there is a generous flourish to the tail of the “J” and “Q” and in the widely extending leg of the “R”. The ascenders are taller than the capitals, which tends to make the x-height (the height of the lower case) appear small. The accompanying italic alphabet conveys the style of a pen script in the sharp change of stroke thickness and the serifs.

One of the first Old Style typefaces, the original Bembo font was cut by Francesco Griffo, and used in 1495 in the Venetian press of the humanist printer Aldus Manutius. The Bembo face was first used in the setting of book entitled De Aetna, a short text about a journey to Mount Aetna written by Italian Cardinal Pietro Bembo.

The typefaces of Manutius and Griffo were to become successful because of their plain and simple readability, which expressed so well the importance that humanists attached to practicalities. Their beauty is to be found in the structure of the letterforms and the proportions of the page, not in the elaborate ornamentation that was so important in Gothic manuscripts. Griffo’s highly skilled interpretation of the classical roman alphabet was to be standard for punchcutters to follow for the next two hundred years.

When the Monotype Corporation revived Bembo in 1929 it was intended to be a text face. The capitals are generous; the capital “N” is almost the same width as the “M”. It has excellent word fit so standard tracking does not require alteration. If it is to be reversed out of black or a color, then there should be a small increase in the tracking.

Monotype created its Bembo in 1929 under the watchful eye of Stanley Morison. This twentieth-century Old Style was closely based on Griffo's designs, which had no italics. Companion italics for Bembo font were created from the work of Renaissance writing master Giovanni Tagliente.

Bembo is the name given to an old style serif typeface based upon a face cut by Francesco and  would serve as a source of inspiration for typefaces of the Parisian publisher Claude Garamond, that are collectively called Garamond. The Bembo font we see today is a revival designed for the Monotype Corporation in 1929 under the watchful eye of Stanley Morison.

The Bembo Font Family is a beautiful text face with classic style, and is a favorite for books, magazines, invitations, and other text applications. Bembo font available for both PC Windows and Mac.