Wikipedia
Sistina may refer to:
- Sistina (typeface), an all-capitals serif typeface
- Sistina Software, a U.S. company that focused on storage solutions designed around a Linux platform, acquired by Red Hat in 2003
- Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina in Italian)
- Sistine Chapel Choir
Sistina is an old style serif typeface designed in 1950 by Hermann Zapf.
Sistina is an all-capitals titling font. It was based on inscriptional capitals Zapf saw in Rome while on a visit to Rome that he made around 1950. The design has a relatively heavy structure, with a 'U' with a foot serif at bottom right, a 'double-V'-style 'W' with four top terminals and a 'palm Y' similar to that on Palatino, inspired by the Greek letter upsilon. Sistina was first released in metal in 1951; Zapf also created another complementary titling font with a lighter weight which was named Michaelangelo.
Sistina was one of several Italian-inspired designs Zapf created for Stempel shortly after the war, following the display oriented serif Palatino (later extensively used for book design). Other Zapf designs with similar influences are the book-oriented Aldus the humanist sans-serif Optima, inspired by gravestones he saw in Florence. Paul Shaw has described Michaelangelo, Sistina, Aldus and Kompakt, an ultra-bold display italic from 1952, as "Palatino's extended family". It was originally named 'Aurelia Titling' after the Roman road named Via Aurelia. Zapf would later use the name for another separate font.
The recent digital version from Linotype adds small capitals. Hermann Zapf also collaborated with Akira Kobayashi to make a revised version of Sistina named "Palatino Imperial" as part of the Palatino Nova font family, which incorporates many of Zapf's Italian-inspired serif designs and the new Palatino Sans.