Marriage, fertility and courtly love in Renaissance Italy: cassone

A cassone was a richly made carved and decorated chest. Because it was expensive to buy, the cassone was much loved by wealthy families in Renaissance Italy. And it was connected to a very special occasion as well, being given by the parents to a young bride during the wedding and then placed next to the marriage bed. A cassone would be a storage space, but it could also be useful as occasional furniture eg a table top.

Cassone with tournament scenes, Florence, c1460, 38 x 130 cm, National Gallery UK

My favourite cassoni had classical architecture, where the flat panels might have corner pilasters, and the sculptural panels might be carved in low relief, under cornices. Most did not have a high panelled back, for these were much too heavy and much more expensive. But with all that gold leaf and all those Old Master paintings, I suppose some families REALLY wanted to show off how elegant they were.

There was one important fact I did not know. James Yorke (Country Life 19/5/2010) said that on the wedding day, the cassone was carried in procession through the streets to the bride’s new home, as shown in a contemporary painting in Tuscany Arts. Thus the element of public display was even more important than I had imagined.

And another thing about the nature of more private display. The Courtauld Gallery said the cassone probably dominated the relatively small but significant space at the centre of the household’s activities. Here the husband and wife would conceive the next generation of their family. Here, too, important guests were entertained or family discussions held. The cassoni provided the backdrop to the life of the family and their painted decorations were carefully chosen, providing both entertainment and instruction.

Courtly love in the Story of Esther, Florentine cassone panel, c1465, tempera and gold on wood, 18 x 55", Metropolitan Museum of Art NY

There was no end of subject material for decorating the side panels, depending on the tastes of the individual family. Certain artists specialised in cassone decoration and became very talented in the themes they depicted – religious, courtly, romantic or domestic. Typically, a devout family might ask for a painting of the Annunciation or the Visitation of St Anne to the Virgin Mary, feminine themes. A family with more noble aspirations might select courtly figures at the fountain of love, or ladies on horseback with falcons taking part in the hunt of love.

Later C15th Florentine cassone, Madrid Archaeological Museum.; cedar wood, gold leaf and oil paintings,  218 x 106 x 86 cm.  Battle of Anghiari paintings.

I knew all of this as an undergraduate art history student. But I had not looked at marriage chests for this blog because they seemed to be too early for my self-imposed 1640 starting date. However there have been several excellent museum exhibitions of cassoni since 2008 and it is worth going back to a much-loved object of domestic Italian art.

Cassoni starred in a 2008-9 Metropolitan Museum NY exhibition called Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. It explored 150 objects created to celebrate love and marriage till the mid-C16th, including maiolica, marriage portraits and paintings that extolled sensual love and fecundity, glassware, jewellery and of course cassone panels.

In 2009, The Courtauld Gallery in London opened a display called Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence. Marriage involved huge expenditure both by the groom and by the bride's family. A patrician husband would buy clothes, jewels and textiles for his new wife and would often refurnish his suite of rooms in the family palace. Among the most significant items commissioned at the time of marriage, and displayed by the Courtauld, were pairs of richly decorated chests. Pairs!

In 2010 The Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence hosted The Virtue of Love exhibition, nuptial painting in the Florentine 15th century. The show introduced the visitor to the private universe of the nuptial suite in the 1400s, richly embellished with works of art. Images from history and mythology populated the wedding chests. Painted by great masters and lesser-known talents, these scenes formed a colourful and vivacious repertory that offered models of virtue and stories of love, historic events and tragedies, to instruct and advise the newlyweds.

Courtauld cassone with high panelled back, 1472, made for the Morelli-Nerli wedding 

Reading recommended by miglior acque came from a 2008-9 exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, also centred on painted marriage chests. I'd love to see the catalogue which made an important contribution to the field: Baskins CL, Randolph AWB, Musachio JM and Chong A, The Triumph of Marriage: Painted Cassoni of the Renaissance (Pittsburgh: Periscope Publishing, 2008).

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With no gold leaf and no coloured or painted panels, the National Gallery of Victoria has introduced a pair of walnut cassoni, dated from the 1570s. They too would have been placed in the bedroom of the newlyweds' home, to be used as storage furniture. But the parents of these newly weds were not going for gold leaf elegance and glamour; rather the story was told in richly carved narrative scenes which ran across the front of both chests. The story of Judith and Holofernes, for example, provided moralising decoration which was intended for the new wife to follow; Judith was a model of chaste virtue whose bravery saved her people from destruction at the hands of one enemy or another.

The Frick Collection in New York has a similar walnut pair, this time with reliefs of Caesar, still resting on large paw feet. Since these walnut cassoni were also made for the scions of two great aristocratic families, we can assume the parents didn't shun gilding and depictions in polychrome tempera from poverty. Rather the (relatively) restrained decor might have shown a preference for classical learning and respectful moralising .

Walnut cassoni, late C16th, 180 cms long

Frick Collection