Near the bottom there’s a “Colored line engraving of saffron by C.H. Hemrich”. A bit random, there’s a “Names” section in the top left, where it lists the name

Near the bottom there’s a “Colored line engraving of saffron by C.H. Hemrich”. A bit random, there’s a “Names” section in the top left, where it lists the name in different languages (Arabic, Greek, Latin, Italian, German, French, etc.). Something that caught my attention was that the names with using the latin alphabet are written in different styles. The Latin name “Crocus.” is very clean, less embellished than the rest of the text, the Italian name “Zaffrano” is more cursive-y and at a slant, etc. The way the different “fonts” are used makes it seem as though the style of writing was used as a way of informing the reader “This is in this language”. Was that common in handwritten documents? I guess that would make sense (maybe that’s where we get the word “italicized”), it’s just nothing I ever considered.