The kind of pen I'm referring to is a pen with a nib that is a flat blade of metal, cut across, making a straight edge, then slit to make an ink channel. If you

The kind of pen I'm referring to is a pen with a nib that is a flat blade of metal, cut across, making a straight edge, then slit to make an ink channel. If you drag it horizontally, e.g. left-to-right, it makes a very fine line; if you drag it vertically, it makes a line as broad as the width of the nib. Sometimes they are cut on a slant; sometimes you hold them on a slant. So take "horizontal" and "vertical" with a bushel of salt. Basically, these things are metal replicas of quill pens, which are made as flat blades cut across to make an edge and then slit. That wide-stroke/thin-stroke business isn't anything to do with italicness, as far as I know; nor is the business of everyone leaning to the right. It's about serifs, and related orthographic flourishes, isn't it? [Edit: the kind of script I mean is angular, straight lines, with vertical strokes meeting diagonal strokes; rather gothic.] Well, those flourishes are facilitated by that kind of nib. Whether that's italic or not, I don't know; but the pen-and-nib sets used to be sold as "Italic pen with set of nibs", or something like that.