RIP Good Kerning

Located inside Rome’s St. Mary Major’s Basilica, a detail in the tomb in which Pope Francis was laid to rest in has received, by most accounts, some rather silly attention: its kerning. When I first saw this “story” pop up in a few places I thought it was an exaggeration and not something worth following up on but, after looking at some better angles of the tomb, it REALLY is baffling that it is SO bad, starting with the fact that his name is typeset in Times New Roman — not even Trajan. What’s crazier is that the default kerning when you type out “FRANCISCVS” is not that bad so someone knowingly or unknowingly actually modified it to be worse.