Chairs Settees and Benches
What primitive chairs and benches looked like, as with most pieces of simple household furniture, is only known by pictorial representations1 . Carved benches of a later period which are even rarely to be found in art collections, probably came from sacristies and religious houses, but their construction is not in contradiction with their having been used for profane public or private purposes. They differentiate from the chest insomuch as they served only for sitting purposes. The seats are...
Cupboards Credenze
Cupboards are here meant to include dressers, sideboards, cabinets and other receptacles, with the exception v of chests, for the preservation of precious things. s This may be seen on a predella picture by the Carrand Master in the Museo Buonarroti, Florence. reliefs became more and more popular. Large and connected representations frequently filled the front of the chest, or, better said, its middle field, fig. 96 for the independency of the decoration and the new naturalism of depiction...
III ARTS AND CRAFTSMEN Hmh
At the time of Renaissance no sharp line was drawn between arts and craftsmen. The builder who built the house also provided for its furnishings, the sculptor began his career as a stone-mason or goldsmith, and famous artists have even painted furniture . Nevertheless there were specialists2 in intarsia - making and wood-carving of great renown, and more especially artist-painters of chests3 . But the influence of famous artists on the build and decoration of the furniture is beyond question....
Cassapanca and Throne
As panelling was not common in dwelling houses, from the earliest time the need of wooden backs for chest-seats must have made itself felt. In this way the bench-box came into existence and from this in the kVth century developed the throne by adding arms and building up the back support architecturally a few decades later came the Cassapanca, that is a box-settle. In the older type of cassapanca the back and arms were of a like height. By this the horizontal is strongly accentuated and the...
Furnishings
frequent civil broils, the civic halls and palaces of the nobles being so built as to serve as strongholds, their chiefest task being to bid defiance to the enemy. Their characteristics are thick walls of rough hewn stone blocks, heavy iron clad doors and small grated windows set high up from the groundsteep and narrow winding staircases. The living rooms, always in the upper stories, were lofty and spacious, but furnished only with the most indispensable objects and little protected against...