'Functional Lettering for the Elementary and High Schools': A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, in the Department of Graphic and Plastic Arts, in the Graduate College of the State University of Iowa

ORIGINAL MA THESIS. 4to-sized (27.7 x 21.6cm), pp. [1], xi, 73 (typed on rectos only), incl. b/w plates, plus numerous clipped illustrations of calligraphic figures pasted in between paragraphs, interleaved with two pages of hand-written corrections in Catich's hand. Grey endpapers. Blue-grey cloth, upper board lettered in gilt. Rubbed, wear and pushing to extremities, a few black pen marks, 2cm patch of black pen (to conceal library shelf mark?) towards heel of spine. Glue and paper remains of book plates to front endpapers, toned, 4cm closed tear to bottom edge of first blank, blind 'St. Ambrose College Library' stamp and second, smudged circular black ink stamp (possibly a deaccession stamp?) to title page. Occasional pencil marginalia, relating to corrections, glue darkened around illustrations pasted-in. Else, internally clean and tight. Very good. WorldCat locates one copy only (University of Iowa). A unique copy of calligrapher and educator Father Edward Catich's 1935 MA thesis, featuring two interleaved pages of his own corrections, and formerly from the library of St. Ambrose College, whose Art Department Catich founded in 1939, four years after being awarded his MA; given the corrections and its former home, likely Catich's own copy. A celebrated calligrapher, stone cutter, jazz musician and lecturer, Father Edward Catich (1906-1979) was an authority on the Roman alphabet and the inscription on Trajan's Column, especially. He discussed the inscription in his thesis, as well as in later publications for his own Catfish Press, such as Letters Redrawn from the Trajan Inscription (1961) and his important Origin of the Serif (1968). In the latter, Catich argued that the serif originated with Roman square capitals and the use of the flat brush, as typified on Trajan's Column. Catich studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (192629), St. Ambrose College and the State University of Iowa, where he wrote this MA thesis, before travelling to Rome in the same year (1935) to study at Pontifical Gregorian University for the Catholic priesthood. He simultaneously conducted palaeographic and epigraphic research. He was ordained in 1938 and returned to Iowa to teach, across an astonishing range of subjects, at St. Ambrose College. PROVENANCE: From the collection of Father David Clark, former Director (2008-2011) of the Von Hügel Institute (VHI), University of Cambridge. …