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A cassone (plural ''cassoni'') or marriage chest is a rich and showy Italian type of
chest
The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the crea ...
, which may be inlaid or carved, prepared with
gesso
Gesso (; "chalk", from the la, gypsum, from el, γύψος) is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these. It is used in painting as a preparation for any number of substrates suc ...
ground then painted and gilded. ''
Pastiglia
''Pastiglia'' , an Italian term meaning "pastework", is low relief decoration, normally modelled in gesso or white lead, applied to build up a surface that may then be gilded or painted, or left plain. The technique was used in a variety of way ...
'' was decoration in low
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
carved or moulded in gesso, and was very widely used. The cassone ("large chest") was one of the trophy furnishings of rich merchants and aristocrats in Italian culture, from the
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...
onward. The cassone was the most important piece of furniture of that time. It was given to a bride and placed in the bridal suite. It would be given to the bride during the wedding, and it was the bride's parents' contribution to the wedding.
There are in fact a variety of different terms used in contemporary records for chests, and the attempts by modern scholars to distinguish between them remain speculative, and all decorated chests are today usually called ''cassoni'', which was probably not the case at the time. For example, a ''forziere'' probably denoted a decorated chest with a lock.
Since a cassone contained the personal goods of the bride, it was a natural vehicle for painted decoration commemorating the marriage in
heraldry and, when figural painted panels began to be included in the decor from the early ''
quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...
'', flattering allegory. The side panels offered a flat surface for a suitable painting, with subjects drawn from
courtly romance or, much less often, religious subjects. By the 15th century subjects from classical mythology or history became the most popular. Great Florentine artists of the 15th century were called upon to decorate ''cassoni'', though as
Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
complains, by his time in the 16th century, artists thought such work beneath them. Some Tuscan artists in
Siena
Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.
The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...
and Florence specialized in such cassone panels, which were preserved as autonomous works of art by 19th century collectors and dealers, who sometimes discarded the cassone itself. From the late 1850s, neo-Renaissance cassoni were confected for dealers like
William Blundell Spence
William Blundell Spence (13 January 1814 – 23 January 1900) was an English painter and art dealer.
Born in Drypool, Yorkshire, to noted entomologist William Spence and his wife Elizabeth Blundell, he spent the years 1826-1832 travelling abroad ...
,
Stefano Bardini
Stefano Bardini (1836–1922) was an Italian connoisseur and art dealer in Florence who specialized in Italian paintings, Renaissance sculpture, '' cassoni'' and other Renaissance and Cinquecento furnishings and architectural fragments that came on ...
or Elia Volpi in order to present surviving cassone panels to clients in a more "authentic" and glamorous presentation.
A typical place for such a cassone was in a chamber at the foot of a bed that was enclosed in curtains. Such a situation is a familiar setting for depictions of the
Annunciation or the
Visitation of St. Anne to the Virgin Mary. A cassone was largely immovable. In a culture where chairs were reserved for important personages, often pillows scattered upon the floor of a chamber provided informal seating, and a cassone could provide both a backrest and a table surface. The symbolic "humility" that modern scholars read into Annunciations where the Virgin sits reading upon the floor, perhaps underestimates this familiar mode of seating.
At the end of the 15th century, a new classicising style arose, and early
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
cassoni of central and northern Italy were carved and partly gilded, and given classical décor, with panels flanked by fluted corner pilasters, under friezes and cornices, or with sculptural panels in high or low relief. Some early to mid-sixteenth-century cassoni drew their inspiration from Roman
sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
(''illustration, right''). By the mid-sixteenth century
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
could remark on the old-fashioned cassoni with painted scenes, examples of which could be seen in the palazzi of Florentine families.
[Vasari, ''Le vite de' piu eccellenti pittori''..., ed. G. Milanesi, vol. II p 148, noted in Ellen Callmann 1999:339 and note 7.]
A cassone that has been provided with a high panelled back and sometimes a footrest, for both hieratic and practical reasons, becomes a ''cassapanca'' ("chest-bench"). ''Cassapanche'' were immovably fixed in the main public room of a
palazzo
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
, the ''sala'' or ''salone.'' They were part of the ''immobili'' ("unmoveables"), perhaps even more than the removable glazed window casements, and might be left in place, even if the palazzo passed to another family.
Notes
References
* Wilhelm von Bode, ''Italian Renaissance Furniture''
* ''Civilta del legno: mobili dalle collezioni di Palazzo Bianco e del Museo degli Ospedali di S. Martino, Genova,'' Palazzo Bianco, 1985. Exhibition catalogue
* Heinrich Kreisel, ''Die Kunst des deutschen Möbels'' vol. I, "Von der Änfangen bis zum Hochbarock" 1968. Comparable German ''kast''.
* Frida Schottmüller, ''Wohnungskultur and Möbel der Italienischen Renaissance'', (Stuttgart, Verlag Julius Hoffman) 1921. Interior decoration and furniture of the Italian Renaissance. Still indispensable.
* Paul Schubring, ''Truhen und Truhenbilder der italienischen frührenaissance'' (Leipzig) 1914, and Supplement, 1923. An unequalled photo repertory of cassoni and cassone panels, often given unrealistically early dates.
* Peter Thornton, ''The Italian Renaissance Interior 1400–1600.'' (New York: Abrams) 1991
* "Cassone - Italian Renaissance Marriage Chest" in ''Eclectique'', 23 September 2009.
* Helen Webberley, "Marriage, fertility and courtly love in Renaissance Italy: cassone" in Art and Architecture, mainly, 1 February 2011
* Helen Webberley, ''Love, sex and family wealth in Florence'' in Art and Architecture, mainly, 25 June 2013
* Susan Grange, 'The cassone - the Renaissance "bottom drawer", in Cassone: The International Online Magazine of Art and Art Books, June 2011 http://www.cassone-art.com
External links
Medieval & Renaissance Chests and TrunksIncludes cassoni of the 14th-16th centuries
{{Commons category, Cassone
Chests (furniture)
Furniture
History of furniture
Italian art