Title Pages came into fashion after printing was introduced. Early MSS. commonly began with the opening words written in large, decorated capitals, the title sometimes being written quite small, near the top of the page: other details were commonly put in the colophon in early books (see p. [142]).
When the title is more important, in a literary sense, than the opening sentence, it may be well to follow the modern fashion. But when there is a finely worded opening sentence—perhaps the key-note to the rest of the text—while the title is merely for reference, it seems reasonable to magnify and illuminate the actual beginning of the book rather than the mere name of it (see p. [365]).
Note (1).—In fig. [89] the title—(JESU CHRISTI) Evangelium Secundum Joannem—is written in as a decoration of the initial word; the old form “
” is used for “Jesu Christi” (these letters, it will be noticed, are here employed to lighten the large capitals, see p. [208]).
(2) Where IN is an initial word, to enforce narrow initial I, both letters may be magnified.
(3) The scale of the lettering corresponds with that of the ruled lines (these do not show in the figure): the letters and the interlinear spaces are each one line high; the initial word is four lines high. Such a mode of spacing is very simple and effective, and will save the rubricator much unnecessary trouble and fruitless planning (see footnote, p. [221]).
(4) Other Colour Schemes.—All Burnished Gold (or with Title in red); or IN gold, with smaller capitals Red (or in Blue and Red lines alternately—or Blue, Red, Green, Red: see p. [181]). [p129]
