The idea for this project came to me, as is often the case, while I was working on one of my other projects. For that initiative I took a LOT of design queues from Fr. Lasance's 'The New Roman Missal'. In the process of creating the website and collateral, I was lucky enough to find a digitized version of the initial caps created by the Cincinnati Type Foundry used by Fr. Lasance in several of his books, including his missal. Thus began my journey down the rabbit hole.
For anyone who regularly assists at the traditional Latin Mass, the question soon occurs to them about which missal to purchase. For many, the answer is Fr. Lasance's missal. While measuring the pros and cons of the various missals on the market, the issue of print quality inevitably comes up in regards to The New Roman Missal. Print quality may be the only area where the missal scores a less-than-stellar grade (price may be a second strike). By any other metric, Fr. Lasance's classic is arguably the greatest resource available in the genre (it is my preferred volume). The problem stems from the fact that this book has never been re-typeset. The version available for purchase today is a scan of the original typesetting, along with the occasional scanning error. But even aside from these occasional defects, the text appears to have a high degree of what I will call dot gain (that's not precisely correct, but it gets the point across). Having spent a substantial portion of my professional career in typesetting, it naturally occurred to me that I should be the one to create a new setting of The New Roman Missal. Because the original 1936 edition is in the public domain it became my model for this new setting.
It is my hope to place the completed volume in the public domain. All of the original Benzinger engravings are in the public domain. And I have found very good equivalents for the header and body fonts. However, the very unique initial caps typeface is under license. If I cannot convince the owner to place the typeface in the public domain, I may have to create my own version... which is something I have never done before.
This is a HUGE task. If you would like to help with proofreading or in any other way please contact me. If you are as excited about this undertaking as I am, please consider supporting me with a contribution.