ABSTRACT
Netherlandish manuscripts from the late fourteenth through the mid-sixteenth centuries are distinguished by an abundance of thresholds and boundaries created on the illuminated page. These thresholds and boundaries manage the relations between the multiple elements on the page: miniature, script and border. This chapter examines the treatment of thresholds and boundaries within Netherlandish manuscript illuminations both in terms of the threshold between center and side, and in terms of the threshold between front and back. In Netherlandish illuminated manuscripts, one of the key thresholds is that between the subject matter in the main miniature and the elements in the borders. Within manuscript illumination, this interplay between center and sides structures relations not only between donors and holy figures but also between elements of the narrative. Other Netherlandish manuscripts expand the narrative by using the borders not just as a zone for additional figures but as the site for additional entire narrative scenes.
