Perpetua and Felicity

Saints Perpetua and Felicity (believed to have died in 203 AD) are Christian martyrs of the 3rd century. Vibia Perpetua was a married noblewoman, said to have been 22 years old at the time of her death, and mother of an infant she was nursing. Felicity, a slave imprisoned with her and pregnant at the time, was martyred with her. They were put to death along with others at Carthage in the Roman province of Africa.

The Passion of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their Companions is one of the oldest and most notable early Christian texts. It survives in both Latin and Greek forms, and purports to contain the actual prison diary of the young mother and martyr Perpetua. Scholars generally believe that it is authentic although in the form we have it may have been edited by others. The text also purports to contain, in his own words, the accounts of the visions of Saturus, another Christian martyred with Perpetua. An editor who states he was an eyewitness has added accounts of the martyrs' suffering and deaths.

Perpetua (typeface)

Perpetua is a typeface that was designed by English sculptor and typeface designer Eric Gill (1882–1940) for Monotype. It is classified as a transitional serif font, designed in the style of fonts such as Baskerville from the late 18th and early 19th century with high stroke contrast, a vertical stress and bracketed serifs. Along with these characteristics, Perpetua bears the distinct personality of Eric Gill's letterforms, for example the lack of serif on the top left of the 'a', the extended leg of the 'R' and the calligraphy-influenced italic 'g'. Perpetua was designed as a font for books and body text, with a matching Titling style for headings. It was also released in Greek.

Development

Gill began work on Perpetua in 1925 at the request of Stanley Morison, typographical advisor to Monotype. Morison sought Gill's talent to design a new typeface for the foundry. By 1929, Perpetua Roman was issued as Monotype Series 239.

Perpetua was set in a limited edition of a new translation by Walter H. Shewring of The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, giving birth to the name of the typeface and its original companion italic. The book was printed in 1929. The same type and illustrations (also done by Gill) for that book subsequently appeared in the Fleuron (number 7) which was edited by Stanley Morison and printed in 1930. Also set in Perpetua and published in 1929 was Gill's Art Nonsense and Other Essays.

Perpetua (disambiguation)

Perpetua may refer to: