“Thresholds and Communities”
Our Theme for 2025

[Posted on 5 February 2025, with updates]

Milan, Casa Campanini, Entry Gate. Designed by Alfredo Campanini (1873–1926). Photograph by Giovanni Dall’Orto (26 February 2008), Share Alike 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Giovanni Dall’Orto, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

For the Year 2025, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence chooses the Theme of “Thresholds and Communities” for exploration as part of its activities and projects.

We began the year’s activities with Episode 19 of our online series wherein “The Research Group Speaks”, in a roundtable discussion introducing the theme and our planned activities. The discussion considered multiple aspects, meanings, and approaches to Thresholds, functioning also as Gateways, Portals, Doors, and Entrances of many kinds.

• Episode 19: “At the Gate”

For activities planned for the year, see:

• 2024 and 2025 Activities

As the year progresses, we will ‘visit’ thresholds of different kinds as we observe their variety. Likewise we will visit communities of various kinds, from the past, present, and perhaps future, as we cultivate the community of the RGME, its participants, audience, friends, and others in the wider world.

Doorways as Grand Entrances

For example, appreciating the photography which showcases the creativity of the design and monumentality of the construction, we might admire the portal to the Casa Campanini, constructed between 1903 and 1906 and designed by the architect Alfredo Campanini (1873–1926). Standing at 11 Via Bellini in Milan, Italy, the main entrance is flanked by a pair of caryatids formed in concrete by the sculptor Michele Vedani (1874–1969). Designed by Campanini and created by Alessandro Mazzucotelli (1865–1938), the wrought iron gate is decorated with graceful floral motifs.

Milan, Casa Campanini, Art Nouveau Style, completed in 1906. Designed by Alfredo Campanini. Image via Dhona, via https://www.facebook.com/groups/Italian.liberty/posts/9132766936775312/.

Thresholds in Literature

We begin with a survey of passages referring to one or more “threshold” in the Bible.

• “Threshold” in the Bible
  Judges 19:27
  1 Kings 14:17
  2 Chronicles 3:7 (the threshold of the Temple, lined with gold)
  Isaiah 6:4
  Ezekiel 46:2 (guards at the threshold of the Temple)
  Zephaniah 1:9
  1 Samuel 5:4-5 (dismembered parts of the fallen idol Dagon laid at the threshold of the temple of idols)
  — Illustrated, for example, in the Morgan Crusader Bible
  (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.361, fol. 21r)
  Jeremiah 35:4

Copenhagen, Entrance to Carlsberg Brewery, built 1901.
Image via https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122224750046226885&id=61556806553551&post_id=61556806553551_122224750046226885&rdid=4h6i5pJiunR2zey7.

Import of a Theme, Place, or Possibility

In addition to physical spaces, “Thresholds” in metaphysical, spiritual, and metaphorical terms are places of transition, which represent beginnings and endings. Navigating them can pose challenges or difficulties. Some of them might not be meant to be traversed, as barriers or points of demarcation. Not always is their passage guaranteed, advisable, or bi-directional. Their presence can be worthy of respect, awe, wonder, admiration, and contemplation.

They offer points of boundary, division, and potential meeting-points for communities.

More to come.

Wells Cathedral, Medieval Door to Undercroft. Wood dated dendochronologically to circa 1265. Image via https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=374843081890636&id=100080948424342&set=a.155695930472020.

Theme and Opportunities

Our events in 2025 on multiple subjects continue to respond to the theme in a myriad of ways. We give thanks to its inspiration and guiding principles.

For example, parts of our 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments invoked the explorations across the thresholds into communities of distinctly different kinds enshrined in the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri. See:

• 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments

Florence, Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Domenico di Michelino, Dante Alighieri with Florence and the Realms of the Divine Comedy (Hell, Purgatory, Paradise). Oil on canvas, 1465. Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Domenico_di_Michelino.jpg.

Places and Fields of Studies to Enter

Entrance to Swift Hall and the Department of History at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. Photograph by Mildred Budny (2025).

Pertinacity

Entrances and Communities across time.

Transept and nave of the Abbey Church of Notre-Dame of the Abbey of Jumièges (Seine-Maritime, France). Photograph by Delphine Malassingne (20 September 2014), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abbatiale_Notre-Dame,_Jumi%C3%A8ges.jpg

Possibilities and Choices

“At the Threshold”. Two cats, footprints, snow, and the story of “The Road Not Taken”. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

We look forward to our next year and its theme. Watch this space!

Now see:

• Transformations and Renewals: RGME Theme for 2026.

*****