cassone

/keuh soh"nee/; It. /kahs saw"ne/, n., pl. cassoni /-nee/.

a large Italian chest of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, usually highly ornamented.

[1880-85; < It, equiv. to cass(a) box (see CASE²) + -one aug. suffix]

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or marriage chest

Chest, usually of wood, intended to contain a bride's dowry or to be given as a wedding present.

It was the most elaborately decorated piece of furniture in Renaissance Italy. In the 15th century, wealthy Florentine families employed artists such as Sandro Botticelli and Paolo Uccello to decorate cassoni with paintings. They were often made in pairs, bearing the respective coats of arms of the bride and groom. Though cassoni were made in many countries, the finest come from Italy.

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▪ furniture

      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 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. Fragments of 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).

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