CHEST-BENCH. — It originated in the Middle Ages from the combination, perhaps intended to save space, of the bench (v.), which was the most common type of seat, and the chest used to hold clothing, books, and other household items. It was found indifferently in castles and taverns, private homes and churches and convents, and was always decorated with carvings, relief sculptures, or inlays, according to the taste of the various centuries. During the Renaissance, chest-benches were widely used in sacristies, chapter halls, apses, and even in presbyteries: arranged along the walls with high backs and low steps in front, they took on a special configuration that long endured in ecclesiastical usage, which employed them for choir functions.
In the 15th century, the term *cassone* (chest) was more widely used with a meaning almost identical to that of the chest-bench (the *cassone* lacks armrests and sometimes backs). In some regions, it was replaced by more specific terms with a slightly dialectal flavor, such as *arca*, *cofano*, *forziere*, *scrigno*, or *cofforo*.
Chest-benches and *cassoni* were artistic as well as functional objects. Cennini explicitly describes the methods of decorating them. In Florence in the 14th–15th centuries, the craft was regulated by specific provisions contained in the statutes of the Arte dei legnaioli (Guild of Woodworkers), still preserved today in that state archive.
Chest-Bench — wooden chest-bench with gilded pastiglia (late 14th century) — Florence, Museo Bardini.
Chests were constructed in the form of low, elongated parallelepipeds, with a curved front panel, and sometimes with a lid shaped like a trunk; the base was initially simple and straight, but later became enriched with ornamental elements and took on a more substantial architectural character. As the upper part developed correspondingly, the chest became a large piece of furniture. There were domestic chests covered with cloth or leather and lined internally with parchment, or carved with reliefs, adorned with raised and gilded stucco (among rare examples is a chest with deer and falcons in the hospital of S. Gimignano), embellished with metal studs and friezes and inlaid with polychrome woods and mother-of-pearl (alla certosina).
As early as the 14th century, chest-benches were decorated with paintings in solid colors or with monochrome friezes. In Florence at that time, there is record of a workshop of a *pictor cofanorum* (painter of chests) on the ground floor of the bishop’s palace, and such painted furniture can be seen in many 14th-century paintings. The Renaissance, however, saw the rise of decoration with narrative scenes, allegories, or other figurative motifs: Vasari gives clear mention of this, and many surviving examples testify to it, including some by Paolo Uccello in Vienna, in the Lanckoronski collection, and in Paris at the Musée Jacquemart-André; by Pesellino, who exerted the greatest influence on furniture painters of the 15th century; by Pollaiuolo (a chest with the scene of Hercules, Deianira, and Nessus was in the Cook collection in Richmond); by Mantegna; and later, in the 16th century, by Bachiacca, Franciabigio, and Andrea del Sarto—until, as the century advanced, relief sculpture became the dominant decoration, bringing to a close the history of this piece of furniture.