CUPBOARD. — The earliest records of cupboards for the custody of liturgical books are found in the mosaics of the mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna and in a miniature from the Amiatine Codex (Florence, Laurentian Library). Wooden furniture of the same type was also used to store sacred vestments and furnishings and featured the same internal spatial arrangement still in use today. Cupboards intended to hold relics were not dissimilar, such as the cypress wood casket with rosettes carved during the time of Leo III, discovered in the Sancta Sanctorum at the Lateran. Another example, still simple in form but richly adorned, is the fourteenth-century piece in the sacristy of the Arena Chapel in Padua. In the early Renaissance, inlaid decorations came into wide use, as seen in the cupboards of Santa Maria del Fiore attributed to Giuliano da Maiano. Later, the cupboard was articulated into multiple sections, and carving became more robust, as in the seventeenth-century examples from the Certosa di Pavia. In many cases, beginning in the seventeenth century, cupboards formed a complete wall lining in sacristies, thus assuming an architectural function while maintaining great simplicity of line. The sacred piece of furniture then diverged from the development of its secular counterpart, remaining more closely tied to tradition and able to accommodate modern simplicity—based on strict adherence to use—without the need for precious materials or effects.
Cupboards for holy oils are mostly small in size and set into the wall, resembling small aediculae framed by the surrounding architecture. Often, the two letters O.S. («olea sancta») are inscribed on the door.