Robert Palladino

{{Short description|American Trappist monk and academic (1932–2016)}}

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Robert Joseph Palladino (November 5, 1932 – February 26, 2016) was an American Trappist monk, calligrapher, and academic.{{cite web|url=http://www.catholicsentinel.org/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=35&ArticleID=14498|title=Communicating the Word of God is his passion|last=Langlois|first=Ed|date=15 March 2013|publisher=Catholic Sentinel|accessdate=23 March 2016}}{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/arts/design/rev-robert-palladino-83-scribe-who-shaped-apples-fonts.html?_r=0|title=Rev. Robert Palladino, Scribe Who Shaped Apple's Fonts, Dies at 83|last=Fox|first=Margalit|date=4 March 2016|work=The New York Times|accessdate=23 March 2016}} He was a professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he taught Steve Jobs, and replaced Lloyd J. Reynolds as the head of the calligraphy program. Jobs credits Palladino's class with inspiring him to include multiple fonts on the original Mac.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/03/08/the-trappist-monk-whose-calligraphy-inspired-steve-jobs-and-influenced-apples-designs/|title=The Trappist monk whose calligraphy inspired Steve Jobs — and influenced Apple's designs|last=Chokshi|first=Niraj|date=8 March 2016|newspaper=The Washington Post|accessdate=23 March 2016}} Despite his influence on Jobs, Palladino never owned a computer.

Although Reed's calligraphy program was dissolved in the 1980s, since 2012 The Calligraphy Initiative in Honor of Lloyd J. Reynolds, a program of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, has introduced a new generation of Reed students and community members to the study and practice of calligraphy and palaeography through a weekly Scriptorium.{{Cite web|url=http://www.reed.edu/gallery/Calligraphy_Initiative.html|title=Reed College Calligraphy Initiative|last=MacNaughton|first=Gregory}} A month before his death in 2016, Robert Palladino returned during Reed's Paideia as a guest instructor.