Encoding italic (was: A last missing link)

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Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

> …, since italic fonts generally are narrower than roman).

I remember reading years ago that that was why italic type was invented 
in the first place in the fifteenth century, so that more text could be 
got into small format books that could conveniently be carried around. 
That is, used for all of the text of a book. So not invented for 
expressing emphasis.

The only modern use of all italics text that I can remember seeing in 
printed books is when poems are typeset in italics.

William Overington
Friday 18 January 2019