initial

thumb|A historiated initial (the letter O) from an illuminated manuscript|alt=A large letter O in a frame. At the centre of the letter, there is an illustration of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone.

In a written or published work, an initial 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 , which means of the beginning. An initial is often several lines in height, and, in older books or manuscripts, may take the form of an inhabited or historiated initial. There are certain important initials, such as the Beatus initial, or B, of at the opening of Psalm 1 at the start of a Vulgate (Bible). These specific initials in an illuminated manuscript were also called ''' (: ').