Though the personal cursive of Niccolò Niccoli, the inventor of ‘italic’, marks a distinctive change of tempo and rhythm in European writing (script hands begin to replace book hands) the context for this development had been several centuries in gestation. In this workshop we trace the thread of interest in cursive scripts from the mid-twelfth century that will eventually transform itself into italic cursive writing and then into the English Round Hand of the seventeenth century. All our studies are made from primary documents and will involve an introduction to writing with the quill pen, though the use of such a pen in class is optional (most people will probably stick to metal nibs, but you will be free to experiment).