The emergence of Gothic art gave rise to the Gothic script and after about 1450 the rotunda or round Gothic typeface, both of which are blackletter typefaces. A defining characteristic of the typeface is the connection of the Gothic letter form with rounded, unbroken bowls on the lowercase letters. The previously prominent diamond- or cube-shape bodies are gone here.

In the early 20th century, the German painter, graphic artists and typographer Emil Rudolf Weiß picked up this old typographic tradition. In 1915 he began to create designs for a new blackletter typeface for the Bauer Type Foundry in Frankfurt am Main. He drew on the round Gothic types of the Augsburg incunabulist Erhard Radolt, who had brought them from Italy. The font was not completed until 1938, more than 20 years later. In its introduction, the catalogue published for the occasion quotes by the famous Renaissance calligrapher Leonhard Wagner: “The round Gothic script is the most beautiful of all scripts; it is called the mother and the queen of all others.”