CASSONE

Renaissance cassone, gilded poplar with painted panel, from the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italian chest, usually used as a marriage chest, and the most elaborately decorated piece of furniture of the Renaissance. Cassoni traditionally were made in pairs and sometimes bore the respective coats of arms of the bride and groom. They contained the bride's clothes, linen, and many other items of her dowry. In the 15th century, when the greatest importance was attached to suitable marital alliances between Florence's wealthiest families, the cassone reached great heights of artistic achievement. Florentine artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Paolo Uccello, and Donatello were employed to decorate cassoni with paintings set in an architectural framework. Battle scenes and classical and literary themes were especially popular. A number of paintings from cassoni of this period have been preserved. Sixteenth-century cassoni were elaborately carved with mythological and grotesque figures, decorated with gilt gesso, putti (cupids), and swags of fruit and flowers, or enriched with intarsia (mosaics of wood). Although the finest marriage chests came from Italy, they were also used in other countries.