How did italicized text come to mean emphasis?

Question

What’s the history on this? When did people start italicizing writing?

In: Other

Answer 1

As the other commenter said, it was originally used to fit more words on pages. For emphasis, at first, italics were used to highlight foreign words or book titles. But over time, people realized italics could also be used to emphasize or stress certain words and phrases.

As printing methods improved, using italics for emphasis became a standard practice. Style guides started including rules on using italics to draw attention to important text.