Initial Letter A With Cockdetails

Initial Letter A With Cock

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This capital letter A was used as a drop cap, or decorated initial, for the text in teh Gospel of Matthew starting, And straightway, and refers to the idea of Peter betraying Jesus three times before the cock crew. Or crowed.

The initial letter “A’ here was the height of four lines of text (baseline ot cap height). It has a horizontal arrow fired from left to right for the cross-bar of the A, and a cock (a male chicken) is perched on it with one foot, the other on the “groud’ perhaps getting ready to peck us some grain rather than being about to toss back his head and crow.

The bold lines and strong composition are characteristic of Eric Gill, and this is a good example of how well the typesetting and illustrations worked together with the text.

lettera, initials, lettering, birds, chickens, arrows, inhabited initials, decorated initials

122-letter-a-and-straightway-q85-1050x1025.jpg

7839 dots per inch (approximately)