Hermann Zapf's design for Aurelia is based on the forms of Jenson, an Old Style typeface developed by Nicolas Jenson in 1470 which still influences type design today. Zapf gave Aurelia a bit of his own personal style and adapted it to the demands of modern technology. Aurelia is a robust and classic font, suitable for both text and headlines. The family of typefaces was originally designed for use with the typesetting machines produced by the German company Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell GmbH. The name Aurelia is a nod to the Roman emperor Aurelianus (214 - 275), who built the Via Aurelia in Italy.
In 1990, Linotype AG merged with Dr.-Ing Rudolf Hell GmbH, forming the Linotype-Hell AG (today Linotype GmbH). Since then, Linotype has been the official source of all fonts that were originally designed for the Hell Corporation. Linotype has also improved the typefaces using new technologies, including OpenType.
About Nicholas Jenson In 1458, Charles VII sent the Frenchman Nicolas Jenson to learn the craft of movable type in Mainz, the city where Gutenberg was working. Jenson was supposed to return to France with his newly learned skills, but instead he traveled to Italy, as did other itinerant printers of the time. From 1468 on, he was in Venice, where he flourished as a punchcutter, printer and publisher. He was probably the first non-German printer of movable type, and he produced about 150 editions. Though his punches have vanished, his books have not, and those produced from about 1470 until his death in 1480 have served as a source of inspiration for type designers over centuries. His Roman type is often called the "first true Roman." Notable in almost all Jensonian Romans is the angled crossbar on the lowercase e, which is known as the "Venetian Oldstyle e."
