calligraphy

Introduction
Early Semitic writing
- Old Hebrew
- Spread of Aramaic to the Middle East and Asia
Arabic calligraphy
Indic calligraphy
Greek handwriting
- Origins to the 8th century ce
  - Ptolemaic period
  - Roman period
  - Byzantine period
- The 8th to 16th century
  - Late uncial, 9th to 12th century
  - Earliest minuscule, 8th to 10th century
  - Formal minuscule, 10th to 14th century
  - Personal hands, 12th to 14th century
  - The Italian Renaissance
Latin-alphabet handwriting
- Ancient Roman styles
  - Rustic capitals
  - Cursive capitals
  - Uncials, half uncials, and cursive minuscule
- The Anglo-Celtic and other “national” styles (5th to 13th century)
- Carolingian reforms in the scriptorium (8th and 9th centuries)
- The black-letter, or Gothic, style (9th to 15th century)
- The scripts of humanism (14th to 16th century)
- Writing manuals and copybooks (16th to 18th century)
- Revival of calligraphy (19th and 20th centuries)

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images, Videos & Interactives

The word Calligraphy is written in elegant blue script with decorative flourishes and a leafy design inside the capital C.

Ornate title page from Sieur de Beaulieu's 1599 calligraphy book, featuring elaborate scrollwork, decorative borders, and allegorical figures around central French text.

Spieghel der Schrijfkonste

Chapter 49 of the Isaiah Scroll

Hebrew Ashkenazic script

Syriac language

Early Kūfic book style

Old Ottoman naskhī script

At a Glance

Shahādah: Islamic profession of faith

calligraphy summary

The word Calligraphy is written in elegant blue script with decorative flourishes and a leafy design inside the capital C. — calligraphy sample The word Calligraphy written using calligraphy.

calligraphy

visual arts

Written by

Donald M. AndersonAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Oct. 17, 2026 •History

calligraphy, the art of beautiful handwriting. The term may derive from the Greek words for “beauty” (kallos) and “to write” (graphein). It implies a sure knowledge of the correct form of letters—i.e., the conventional signs by which language can be communicated—and the skill to make them with such ordering of the various parts and harmony of proportions that the experienced, knowledgeable eye will recognize such composition as a work of art. Calligraphic work, as art,...

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