Ornamental Initial Letter 'R' from Oedipus Aegyptiacus

The image features a large, decorative capital letter 'R' rendered in a bold, black-ink woodcut style against a light parchment background. The central part of the letter contains a stylized flower with five petals, while the surrounding space is filled with intricate, swirling acanthus-like leaves. To the right of the initial, fragments of typeset Latin text are visible, beginning with 'Egi A', 'Hog', 'Régi', and 'Szé'.

This initial appears in Athanasius Kircher’s 'Oedipus Aegyptiacus' (1652–1654), a monumental compendium of Hermetic, Egyptian, and syncretic knowledge that sought to decode hieroglyphics as a divine language. The use of elaborate historiated or floral initials was a standard practice in 17th-century scholarly printing to signify the importance of the work’s encyclopedic scope.