one known exception, not yet adequately explained—two fragments of imperial rescripts of the 5th century—the minuscule cursive was consequently the only scriptura epistolaris of the Roman world. The ensuing succession of documents show a continuous improvement in this form of writing, characterised by the boldness of the strokes and by the elimination of the last lingering majuscule forms. The Ravenna deeds of the 5th and 6th centuries exhibit this hand at its perfection. At this period, the minuscule cursive made its appearance as a book hand, first as marginal notes, and later for the complete books themselves. The only difference between the book-hand and that used for documents is that the principal strokes are shorter and the characters thicker. This form of the hand is usually called semi-cursive. National hands The fall of the Empire and the establishment of the barbarians within its former boundaries did not interrupt the use of the Roman minuscule cursive hand, which was adopted by the newcomers. But for gaps of over a century in the chronological series of documents which have been preserved, it would be possible to follow the evolution of the Roman cursive into the so-called "national hands", forms of minuscule writing which flourished after the barbarian invasions in Italy, France, Spain, England and Ireland, and which are still known as Lombardic, Merovingian, Visigothic, Anglo-Saxon and Irish. These names came into use at a time when the various national hands were believed to have been invented by the peoples who used them, but their connotation is merely geographical. Nevertheless, in spite of a close resemblance which betrays their common origin, these hands are specifically different, perhaps because the Roman cursive was developed by each nation in accordance with its artistic tradition. Lombardic writing In Italy, after the close of the Roman and Byzantine periods, the writing is known as Lombardic, a generic term which comprises several local varieties. These may be classified under four principal types: two for the scriptura epistolaris, the old Italian cursive and the papal chancery hand, or littera romana, and two for the libraria, the old Italian book-hand and Lombardic in the narrow sense, sometimes known as Beneventana on account of the fact that it flourished in the principality of Benevento. The oldest preserved documents written in the old Italian cursive show all the essential characteristics of the Roman cursive of the 6th century. In northern Italy, this