Gentium
| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Old-style |
| Designer(s) | Victor Gaultney |
| Date created | 2001 |
| Date released | 2002-09-16 (Gentium 1.00) |
| Characters | 2,750+ |
| Glyphs | 4,500+ |
| License | Open Font License |
| Variations | Gentium Basic Gentium Book Basic Gentium Book Plus Gentium Plus Gentium Plus Compact [all variants were unified in version 7] |
| Sample | |
| Website | software |
| Latest release version | 7.00 |
| Latest release date | June 1, 2025 |
Gentium (/ˈdʒɛntiəm/, from the Latin for "of the nations") is a Unicode serif typeface family designed by Victor Gaultney. Gentium fonts are free and open source software, and are released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), which permits modification and redistribution. Gentium has wide support for languages using the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts, as well as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and other phonetic notation, excluding mostly paleographic and medievalist characters. Gentium includes over 4,500 glyphs and advanced typographic features through OpenType and formerly Graphite.
Gentium was designed for use at 10-11 points. Wide counters and low stroke contrast improve readability at small point sizes. Long ascenders allow diacritics stacking. In 2003, the Gentium font was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design from the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) as one of the best designs of the previous five years.