The origins of the typeface we know today as Monti Sans can be traced back to America’s first successful type foundry, established in Philadelphia by Archibald Binny and James Ronaldson in 1796. Among the most enduring American types ever designed, it has now nearly realized a proverbial nine lives. Its first three iterations took the form of hand-set type and spanned more than a century. Its fourth incarnation, an arduous conversion to Linotype, was undertaken in the 1940s by C.H. Griffith at the Mergenthaler Company with the aid of Princeton University Press’s P.J. Conkwright. It was this revival, intended to provide a historically appropriate face for the publication of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, that gave the font its modern name…