RGME Bembino:
Handlist of Resources
[Posted on 31 August 2025]
As we prepare for Episode 22 in our series “The Research Group Speaks”, we assemble a Handout or Handlist of Resources for information and further exploration.
Episode 22
“Meet RGME Bembino: Facets of a Font”
Saturday 20 September 2025
1:00–2:30 pm EDT (GMT-4) by Zoom
Registration
Episode 22: Tickets
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Here we offer Notes and Links to accompany our presentation in Episode 22 of “Facets of a Font”.
A Timeline:
Steps to
A Font of Our Own and for Anyone
What steps did the RGME take to create and disseminate a multi-lingual digital font which might serve scholars’ and authors’ requirements for representing their texts, enable them and anyone to use the font freely, and adapt the font according to requests?
1. Create the RGME (1989, Cambridge, U.K.) to engage in Research & to Disseminate Knowledge
2. Choose the Name of our organization, according with the major research project which gave rise to the RGME
RGME Logo
3. Design our Logo, Letterhead, Business Cards
4. Set the Style Manifesto for Our Publications (1990)
& Choose our Preferred Font: Adobe Garamond to start with
5. Complete our Research Project and Move to Princeton, New Jersey (1994)
6. Become Nonprofit Educational Corporation (1999)
7. Continue Scholarly Activities & Publications
8. Design, Launch & Expand RGME Bembino (from Version 1.0 in 2011, now in Version 6.1), adding languages and other elements by request
9. Make our copyright multi-lingual digital font available freely for download and use
10. Add features such as a version for Microsoft Word (BembinoWP for Word) to increase accessibility and ease of use for a wide audience, scholarly and other, including everyday
11. Give thanks to our friends, colleagues, advisors, and users of Bembino as we recognize the distance traversed from the first steps to the present, with advice, requests, and improvements
12. Celebrate the uses which we can see the font serve purposefully and well in our own and others’ publications of many kinds, both traditional and digital
P.S. Please let us know about your uses of Bembino. We would be glad for copies of them for our records.
Information
RGME & RGME Bembino
Who We Are: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/who-we-are
Bembino: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/profile/bembino/
— with a Booklet and the Bembino Font Pack for Download
Multi-Lingual Bembino: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/multi-lingual-bembino/
More Fonts for Bembino: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/more-fonts-for-bembino-devanagiri-hindi-and-tibetan/
BembinoWP for Word: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/bembino-wp-for-word/
Interview: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/interview-with-our-font-and-layout-designer/
— Report of an Interview with our Font Designer
RGME Style Manifesto: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/style-manifesto/
RGME Publications: https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/profile/publications/
Multi-Lingual Bembino Booklet Cover
Typography: Font Standards and Examples
OpenType: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/
TrueType: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/truetype/
Adobe Compact font Format (CFF): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/cff
MATH: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/math
Font Atlas: Sutton James and Bartram Alan, An Atlas of Typeforms (Ware, UK, 1988)
Fonts: Other Fonts that have Inspired Us
Adobe Garamond: https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/adobe-garamond
Monotype Bembo: https://www.myfonts.com/collections/bembo-mt-font-monotype-imaging
Asana-Math: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asana-Math
Software:
Some Software Programs
for text-layout, typesetting, and type design
Office/Word: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/download-office
FreeOffice: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org
OpenOffice: https://www.openoffice.org
InDesign: https://www.adobe.com/products/indesign
Illustrator: https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator
Photoshop: https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop
Quark: https://www.quark.com/products/quarkxpress
Pages: https://www.apple.com/in/pages/
Keynote: https://www.apple.com/in/keynote/
FontForge: https://fontforge.org/en-US/
Washington, D. C., Samuel H. Kress Collection of National Gallery of Art. Titian (1490–1576),
Portrait of Cardinal Pietro Bembo, 1539 and 1540. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Titian_%E2%80%93_Cardinal_Pietro_Bembo_%E2%80%93_Google_Art_Project.jpg.
History:
Important People in the History of Bembo (and Bembino)
Aldus Manutius (circa 1449/1452 – 1515): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus_Manutius
Pietro Bembo (1470–1547): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Bembo
Francesco Griffo (1450–1518): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Griffo
Bembino in Print and on Screen
RGME official website (You Are Here): https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme
RGME Publications (since the launch of RGME Bembino): https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/profile/publications/
Imaginary Books (set in RGME Bembino): Reid Byers, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books (New Castle, DE and Paris: Oak Knoll Press and Le Club Fortsas, 2024)
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Disclaimer
Font design and selection is very much a matter of personal choice. The decisions taken by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence do not constitute a criticism of any existing font, font designer, or choice of font for any other publication.
Version of April 2015 set in RGME Bembino
Questions or Suggestions?
Please leave your comments or questions below or Contact Us.
We invite you to join:
Donations & Contributions
RGME Bembino is free to use, whether for non-commercial or commercial purposes.
Providing and supporting RGME Bembino is one of the ways the RGME supports its mission of analyzing and presenting the Evidence of Manuscripts (and other written works) through publications and hosted events. We are a nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers, whose contributions include the work to create and maintain Bembino over many years.
To help us to continue with our work, we invite you to donate funds or make contributions in kind.
Given our low overheads, your donations have direct impact on our work and the furtherance of our mission. For our Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, your donations may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.
You could make donations in any of these ways:
1) Online via MightyCause :
2) Online via PayPal, Venmo, ApplePay, Pay Later, or Debit or Credit Card:
3) Check, Cash, and/or Non-Cash Donations.
- see the Donation Form
- or Contact Us.
Thank you for your support!
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