Ambergau 116R (1472, above) is also remarkable as a wide, round and highly contrasted type design that probably gained some success because it was employed by different printers including — so it was believed — Johannes de Westfalia, a printer who worked in far-away Leuven, near Brussels.[9]

Ambergau employed this type only in his 17th and last edition

The main feature of this type is probably the exceedingly inclined angle of stress in the round letters; moreover in letter o the stress is in the opposite direction compared with that of the other letters, so that some problems occur when letter o is next to other round letters in pairs like bo, oc, od, op. This o with opposite contrast was dropped by the presses that used this type after Ambergau: their o is a mirrored version of Ambergau’s o and it was achieved by cutting a new punch (fig. 6). Finally Ambergau 116R mostly follows the usual serif formation — as with Spira and Jenson — with pen-driven serifs in the lowercase (thus on top of b, d, h, i, l, m, n, p, r) consisting of oblique straight strokes. Notably, such a shape of serif is also placed at the top of the left stem of u.

In Ambergau’s o (above) the stress follows the opposite direction compared with that of the other letters, while Argentina (below) employed a mirrored version (more consistent with the other letters) that came from another punch.

According to the extant books, after having printed 16 editions with the Jenson roman (called Ambergau 113R) Ambergau employed this type only in his 17th and last edition.[10] A hypothesis of what might have happened follows: Ambergau started the business with a limited investment, purchasing an existing type available on the market — the Jenson roman. Only later, when his firm might have been flourishing, he decided to furnish his presses with a new type, even though his venture was destined to disappear in the following months during the 1473 crisis.[11]

It seems that Westfalia employed a close imitation of the Ambergau roman

Ambergau stopped printing but the same type is found in books printed by other Venetian printing offices. It was used by the German printer Florentius de Argentina in several of his editions printed in 1472–1473 (Argentina 119R),[12] then by Leonhardus and Hans Aurl in one edition each, and finally in an unsigned Fiore novello that has not yet been attributed to any press.[13]

Though it follows the same design letter by letter, Johannes de Westfalia 120R seems to come from punches other than those of Ambergau, because most of letters show structural differences when overlaid. If the skeleton of letters a and g seems to match, this is not the case for the rest, where Westfalia letters are usually slightly smaller (Ambergau red, Westfalia grey).

Finally, as mentioned, bibliographers claimed that this type was employed by Johannes de Westfalia in Leuven in the early 1480s (Westfalia 120R): but this is not confirmed by type analysis. Comparisons between Westfalia’s and Ambergau’s letterforms show that, although following the same design, the two types do not come from the same punches. As shown above, the same letters display structural differences from one type to another which, however small, point to this conclusion. It seems that Westfalia employed a close imitation of the Ambergau roman, cut by a skillful punchcutter who aimed to imitate Ambergau letter by letter. However, more research is needed on this type.