![Conversation-saints 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Conversation-saints_01.jpg)
In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a
chapter, or a
paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''initialis'', which means ''standing at the beginning''. An initial is often several lines in height and in older books or manuscripts are known as "inhabited" initials. Certain important initials, such as the Beatus initial or "B" of ''
Beatus vir
Beatus vir (; "Blessed is the man...") are the first words in the Latin Vulgate Bible of both Psalm 1 and Psalm 112 (in the general modern numbering; it is Psalm 111 in the Greek Septuagint and the Vulgate). In each case, the words are used to r ...
...'' at the opening of Psalm 1 at the start of a
vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...
Latin. These specific initials in an illuminated manuscript were also called initiums.
In the present, the word "initial" commonly refers to the first letter of any word or name, the latter normally
capitalized
Capitalization (American English) or capitalisation (British English) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term a ...
in English usage and is generally that of a first given name or a
middle one or ones.
History
![Ornamental Alphabet - 16th Century](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Ornamental_Alphabet_-_16th_Century.svg)
The
classical tradition
The Western classical tradition is the reception of classical Greco-Roman antiquity by later cultures, especially the post-classical West, involving texts, imagery, objects, ideas, institutions, monuments, architecture, cultural artifacts, ritua ...
was slow to use capital letters for initials at all; in surviving Roman texts it often is difficult even to separate the words as spacing was not used either. In
late antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
(c. 4th–6th century) both came into common use in Italy, the initials usually were set in the left margin (as in the third example below), as though to cut them off from the rest of the text, and about twice as tall as the other letters. The radical innovation of
insular manuscripts was to make initials much larger, not indented, and for the letters immediately following the initial also to be larger, but diminishing in size (called the "
diminuendo" effect, after the
musical term). Subsequently, they became larger still, coloured, and penetrated farther and farther into the rest of the text, until the whole page might be taken over. The decoration of insular initials, especially large ones, was generally abstract and geometrical, or featured animals in patterns. Historiated initials were an
Insular invention, but did not come into their own until the later developments of
Ottonian art
Ottonian art is a style in pre-romanesque German art, covering also some works from the Low Countries, northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and nort ...
,
Anglo-Saxon art
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norma ...
, and the
Romanesque style in particular. After this period, in
Gothic art large paintings of scenes tended to go in rectangular framed spaces, and the initial, although often still historiated, tended to become smaller again.
In the very early history of
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
, the
typesetters would leave blank the necessary space, so that the initials could be added later by a scribe or
miniature
A miniature is a small-scale reproduction, or a small version. It may refer to:
* Portrait miniature, a miniature portrait painting
* Miniature art, miniature painting, engraving and sculpture
* Miniature (chess), a masterful chess game or problem ...
painter. Later initials were printed using separate blocks in
woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
or
metalcut techniques.
File:P46.jpg, Greek biblical text from Papyrus 46
Papyrus 46 (''P. Chester Beatty II''), designated by siglum (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), is an early Greek New Testament manuscript written on papyrus, and is one of the manuscripts comprising the Chester Beatty Papyri. Manuscripts among ...
, of c. 200, with no initials, punctuation, and barely spaces between words
File:Codex Alexandrinus f41v - Luke.jpg, 5th century Codex Alexandrinus
The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII), designated by the siglum A or 02 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 4 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a manu ...
with initials in left margin
File:Leaves from a Coptic Manuscript MET sf21-148-1as2.jpg, Leaf from a Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet ...
manuscript, 6th-14th century, Metropolitan museum of Art, New-York
File:CathachOfStColumba.jpg, "Diminuendo" effect in the first letters after this initial from the Cathach of St. Columba
The Cathach of St. Columba, known as the Cathach (meaning "the Battler"),O'Neill (2014), p. 12 is a late 6th century Insular psalter. It is the oldest surviving manuscript in Ireland, and the second oldest Latin psalter in the world.
Its cumdac ...
(Irish, 7th century)
File:KellsDecoratedInitial.jpg, One of thousands of smaller decorated initials from the Book of Kells
The Book of Kells ( la, Codex Cenannensis; ga, Leabhar Cheanannais; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. 8 sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New ...
File:Meister der Franko-Sächsischen Gruppe 001.jpg, ''In principio'' from the start of the Gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
, 9th century
File:Illuminated capital letter D, Mokvi Gospels (2).jpg, Illuminated Georgian letter "D" from the Mokvi Gospels
The Mokvi Four Gospels ( ka, მოქვის ოთხთავი) is a 13th-century illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels in Georgian, copied in the ''nuskhuri'' script and richly adorned with miniatures at the Mokvi Cathedral in Abkhazia ...
File:JesseTree.jpg, Large initial L from a Romanesque Bible
File:Mainz - Johann Fust & Peter Schoeffer (printers) - Mainz Psalter - Google Art Project.jpg, Opening from the Mainz Psalter
The ''Mainz Psalter'' was the second major book printed with movable type in the West; the first was the Gutenberg Bible. It is a psalter commissioned by the Mainz archbishop in 1457. The Psalter introduced several innovations: it was the f ...
, printed in 1457, with small printed and large drawn initials.
File:Fraktur.png, Fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
File:Agricola.jpg, Alexander Agricola
Alexander Agricola (; born Alexander Ackerman; – 15 August 1506) was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance writing in the Franco-Flemish style. A prominent member of the ''Grande chapelle'', the Habsburg musical establishment, he wa ...
's score: "Fortem virili"
Lettrine et petites capitales.JPG, Two row-wide P initial, followed by small capitals
Since 2003, the W3C is working for initial letter modules for
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
Inline Layout Module Level 3, which standardized the output of initial letters for web pages.
Types of initial
The initials are
morphologically classified: ''the
rubricated'' letter (red); the ''epigraphic'' letter, imitating ancient
Roman majuscules; the ''figurated'' initial (usually in miniatures); the ''
historiated
In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...
'' initial, that gives spatial support to scenes of a narrative character; etc.
The initial may sit on the same baseline as the first line of text, at the same margin, as it does here. This is the easiest to typeset on a computer, including in
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
. An example follows (using
Lorem ipsum nonsense text):
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Alternatively, the initial may be in the left margin, with the text indented, as shown here. In word processors and HTML, this may be implemented using a table with two cells, one for the initial and one for the rest of the text. The difference between this and a true drop cap may be seen when the text extends below the initial. For example:
With a drop cap, the initial sits within the margins and runs several lines deep into the paragraph, indenting some normal-sized text in these lines. This keeps the left and top margins of the paragraph flush.
In modern computer browsers, this may be achieved with a combination of HTML and
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
by using the float: left; setting. A CSS-only solution alternatively can use the :first-letter pseudo-element. An example of this format is the following paragraph:
L
orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
In some older manuscripts, the first letter of normal sized text after a drop cap also would be capitalized, as may be seen in the Mainz Psalter above, and in the original 1609 printing of
Shakespeare's sonnets. This evoked the handwritten "diminuendo" style of gradually reducing the text size over the course of the first line. This style now is rare, except in newspapers.
See also
*
Middle initial
In various cultures, a middle name is a portion of a personal name that is written between the person's first given name and their surname.
A middle name is often abbreviated and is then called middle initial or just initial.
A person may b ...
*
Monogram
A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series o ...
*
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
References
Further reading
* .
External links
Typolis.dein the Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture
OrnamentoOrnamento contains close to a quarter of a million ornate letters, ornaments, borders, musical notation, diagrams, and illustrations drawn from Iberian print before 1701.
Initials and Ornamentsb
Book Historianon Flickr.com
Alphabets & Lettersat Reusableart.com
Make the letter bigger: A history of initialsat ilovetypography.com
{{Authority control
Typography
Book design
Iconography of illuminated manuscripts
Capitalization