John Baskerville (1706-1775) got involed in typography late in his career but
his contribution was significant. He was a successful entrepreneur and
possesed an inquiring mind which he applied to produce many aesthetic and
technical innovations in printing. He invented a new ink formula, a new type
of smooth paper and made various improvements in the printing press. He was
also involved in type design which resulted in a latin typeface which was used
for the edition of Virgil, in 1757. The quality of the type was admired
throughout of Europe and America and was revived with great success in the
early 20th century.
Baskerville was also involved in the design of a Greek typeface which he used
in an edition of the New Testament for Oxford University, in 1763. He adopted
the practice of avoiding the excessive number of ligatures which Alexander
Wilson had started a few years earlier but his Greek types were rather narrow
in proportion and did not win the sympathy of the philologists and other
scholars of his time. They did influence, however, the Greek types of
Giambattista Bodoni. and through him Didot's Greek in Paris.
The typeface has been digitally revived as GFS Baskerville Classic by Sophia
Kalaitzidou and George D. Matthiopoulos and is now available as part of GFS'
type library.