The initials are
morphologically classified:
the rubricated letter (red); the
epigraphic letter, imitating ancient
Roman majuscules; the
figurated initial (usually in miniatures); the
historiated initial, that gives spatial support to scenes of a narrative character; etc. The size and decoration of the initial further gives clues to both its importance and location. Letters that began a new section of a text or a particularly noteworthy section might receive more flourishes and space. They would also provide a visual point of reference, "marking the division of the text into books, chapters, paragraphs and sometimes even verses" since, due to the cost of parchment, the modern convention that a new section will begin on a new page had not emerged. In luxury manuscripts an entire page might be devoted to a historiated initial. 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. For example: 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. 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:
Drop cap 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 by using the float: left; setting. An alternate CSS-only method can instead use the :first-letter pseudo-element. For example: 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. 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.
Inhabited initial , 1153 AD, Los Angeles, Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig IX 1 (83.ML.97), fol. 331v|alt=Large uppercase E decorated with spirals and dogs An
inhabited initial is an initial, an enlarged
letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text that contains an illustration of human or animal figures within the letter. It is similar to a historiated initial (see below); however, the figures in historiated initials show an identifiable scene or story, while the figures in inhabited initials do not show a narrative. Figures in inhabited initials may be related to the contents of the text, but do not have to be. They may be purely decorative instead.
Historiated initial . '', 8th century A
historiated initial is an initial, an enlarged
letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, that contains a picture. Strictly speaking, a historiated initial depicts an identifiable figure or a specific scene, while an inhabited initial (see above) contains figures (human or animal) that are decorative only, without forming a subject. Both sorts became very common and elaborate in luxury
illuminated manuscripts. These illustrated initials were first seen in the
Insular art of the early 8th century. The earliest known example is in the
Saint Petersburg Bede, an Insular manuscript of 731–46, and the
Vespasian Psalter has another. == Opening quotation marks ==