The Renaissance - Italy

Italian furniture is usually subdivided by regions rather than reigns. From c.1350 - 1450 Italy was not one state but a number of small ones often at war with each other. The Italian League - a confederation founded in 1455 - fortunately led to a period of comparative unity, peace and prosperity in which the arts could flourish.

In its broad sense of the 'rebirth of learning', the Renaissance owed much to an attitude of mind cultivated a century earlier by the poet Petrarch, who was passionately devoted to classical culture. Although deeply religious, he was the founder of humanism, a philosophy which valued man's earthly existence and revived interest in the mythologies of Ancient Greece and Rome, finding in the legendary gods and goddesses many attractively human traits. A new style of architecture was inaugurated based on classical precepts, and eventually furniture was made to complement the new style.

The effect of all this on the furnishings of the Italian home, even the very prosperous ones, was only gradual. At first, richly decorated furniture in the new style was the exception rather than the rule and indeed the early effect of the Renaissance on Italian fitted and non fitted furniture was more negative than positive, the majority of pieces dating from c.1450-1480, being rather angular and plain. Traditional forms were preserved, and while Gothic ornament had been discarded, it had not yet been replaced by much Renaissance detail.

The true Renaissance man of studious inclination set aside a room for himself in which there were architecturally conceived, built-in shelves and cupboards to hold his precious books and manuscripts, collections of ancient coins, works of art and geological specimens. A chair to sit in, a table to work at and a portable desk with a sloping top which doubled as a lectern for heavy volumes.
If his taste ran to extravagant display, and he had the money to indulge it, the more public rooms of his house took on a new splendour to which, at first, rich textiles and finely-wrought silver contributed most. The piece of handmade furniture on which he would be likely to lavish most expense was the Italian version of the chest, still known today by its old name of 'cassone'. If he had married the daughter of a prosperous man, the cassone would have arrived with the bride, and would have held her dowry. In very rich families there was often a pair of such chests, one bearing the bride's coat-of-arms and the other, the bride groom's.

This special use of the chest was adopted in many countries, and in some peasant communities it persisted as a tradition until well into the 19th century, complete with gaily painted decoration. In early 16th century Italy, the cassone was often splendidly painted - in the north with biblical or other sacred subjects, in the south more often with pagan scenes taken from Roman mythology. Artists of the first rank did not consider it beneath their dignity to execute this work, with the result that some of the finest cassoni have been cut up to satisfy art collectors.