Albertus is a glyphic serif typeface designed by Berthold Wolpe in the period 1932 to 1940 for the Monotype Corporation type foundry. Wolpe named the font after Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth-century German philosopher and theologian.
Wolpe studied as a metal engraver, and Albertus was modeled to resemble letters carved into bronze. The face began as titling capitals. Eventually a lowercase roman was added, and later an italic, which is distinct for its narrow character set. Albertus has slight glyphic serifs. It is available in titling, bold and italic varieties.
The project began in 1932. Titling caps were released first, in 1935, followed by a roman upper and lowercase in 1938 and a light weight in 1940.
A slightly modified version was used extensively in The Prisoner, a 1967 British television series frequently mined for cultural references. Modifications to the Albertus font include opening the loop on the lowercase e and the addition of new dotless i and j characters.
Albertus is the logo and title font for the 1632 series of alternative history books.
Albertus was, for many years, the typeface used on English coinage.citation needed
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Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopædia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
Williams, Owen Berthold Wolpe and His Typeface Albertus Letter Arts Review, Vol 20 No 1, 2006