Giovanni Bellini's signatures have been discussed in terms of artistic identity. But there is another side to the topic that has received relatively little attention. Bellini was formed within a climate of passionate involvement with letter forms, both antique and those developed within the active book production of Renaissance Venice.

Analyzed here are the specific forms of the letters used by Bellini in his signatures, concentrating on the italic, or cursive, signature. This signature type emerges rather late in Bellini's career, first seen — it is argued here — in Bellini's portrait of Pietro Bembo in the Royal Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. The connection between Pietro Bembo and Aldus Manutius, the publishing genius who put cursive letters in the service of a new type of humanist book, is seen as a key component of the dynamic that led to the change in Bellini's signature style.