Casket

COFANETTO. - By this term and others expressing similar concepts, such as "cassettina," "teca," or, in Latin, "capsella" (v. CAPSA), there are designated small chests and coffers of various shapes but modest dimensions intended for the safekeeping of precious objects.

The ivory teca of the Christian Museum of Brescia (v. AVORIO), which by the character of its reliefs can be assigned to the 4th century and considered as coming from the territories of the Hellenistic East, is in the early Christian age the most distinguished example of such works, while other gradations of taste and of the classicizing style are reflected in the silver capsella perhaps of the time of St. Ambrose which is in Milan in the church of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, and in the coffer of a Proiecta, wife of a Secundus, likewise of silver and equally to be assigned to the 4th century, found in Rome during excavations conducted on the Esquiline, but today in London in the British Museum, as well as in a c. of the Civic Museum of Pola with ivory reliefs depicting scenes of the Passion. Silver c. found in the treasury of the "Sancta Sanctorum" at the Lateran and others at Brivio and Carthage, preserved respectively in Paris at the Louvre and in Rome in the Museo Sacro Vaticano, must instead be assigned to the 6th century, presumably works of Eastern goldsmiths. On the other hand, a silver capsella and reliquary of the cathedral of Grado are the work of Western masters. Extremely rare and fragmentary are the remains of c. of classicizing style to be assigned to an age between the 7th and the end of the 8th century, when nevertheless goldsmithing of barbarian taste created a truly distinguished masterpiece in the reliquary of the cathedral of Monza: a c. of gold worked with complex ornaments in relief and entirely encrusted with gems and colored stones.

A group of c. executed between the 9th and 12th centuries, covered with ivory reliefs and often referred to as "cassettine civili," takes on a wholly particular character, so much so as to be considered as constituting a chapter of its own in the very evolution of Byzantine ivory sculpture. They are generally of rectangular shape, have a flat lid and faces covered with reliefs with almost always profane representations executed in a style that directly connects to that of the ancient Hellenistic art, whose motifs it often reprises. Examples are preserved in the cathedral of Capodistria, in the treasury of the cathedral of Ivrea, in the National Museum of the Bargello in Florence, etc. In Rome, at the basilica of St. Paul, there is one of these cassettine which nevertheless also shows evident Northern influences; it was certainly executed in the second half of the 11th century. And to Southern Italian artists must also be assigned some ivory c. that reflect in varying degrees the forms proper to the cassettine mentioned above but interpreted with stylistic accents not very different from those proper to the authors of the antependium of the cathedral of Salerno, a masterpiece of Southern workshops of the 12th century. There are some in Palermo in the treasury of the Palatine Chapel, where there are also some c. of the same age but which imitate Muslim style and technique with figures and arabesques subtly engraved and retouched with brown color and gilding. There are also some in Florence in the Bargello museum and in Italian and foreign collections. To the same group may be approached the c. of the cathedral of Civita di Bagnorea (Bagnoregio), whose carved friezes may nevertheless recall those of certain Muslim woodworks, and the cassettina covered with silver plates in the museum of the cathedral of Anagni.

C. covered with enamels or adorned with medallions or enamel plaques, the work of French artists, especially of Limoges, and of Rhenish artists, and of Byzantine artists, spread in Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries; the treasuries of churches and public and private collections are rich in them, contributing to the renewed knowledge and the diffusion of that very ancient technique which then found imitators even among us. During the flourishing of Gothic taste, c. too, like every other object of goldsmithing, reflected the slender and elegant forms of the new style. There were then wooden c. carved and painted or covered with embossed precious metals or with ivory or bone plaques. And bone carvings were worked especially by the craftsmen of the Embriachi family (v.), authors of an infinite number of c.

In the Renaissance, during the 15th century and the early 16th, c., resuming the forms of cassoni, became precious more for the exquisiteness of the art than for the richness of the material. There were some covered not only with ivory and metals, but with paintings, carvings, and decorations with reliefs, executed in a pastiglia based on rice flour, which stand out on gilded backgrounds according to a subtle and delicate technique that enjoyed wide success especially in the Veneto. But it was in the mid-16th century that Italian goldsmithing created one of its greatest masterpieces in the admirable book c. known as the Farnese cassettina, today in the National Museum of Naples. The structural elements of the c., of Michelangelesque inspiration, are worked in gilded silver and made light by the opaline transparencies of six engraved rock crystals. The work, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese from Manno, a Florentine goldsmith, in 1548, was completed after various interruptions toward the end of 1561; the six rock crystals were engraved by Giovanni Bernardi of Castelbolognese.

During the Baroque age and modern times, the taste of the times has been reflected in c. of various dimensions and various uses.

Emilio Lavagnino