I have always admired my grandmother’s handwriting. It appeals to my inner Luddite who periodically gets the urge to leave the city and head to the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. To me, the tight lettering and flourishing loops of her “f”s and “g”s are time stamps of an older era that say “I was here.” It is from her that I trace my interest in palaeography and in Classics, of which italic script represents an ideal nexus.