Italian renaissance furniture

For some years past, so lively an interest has been manifested in Italian furniture of the Renaissance, and also of the periods subsequent thereto, that the publication of this book needs no apology.

Two books hitherto, George Leland Hunter's Italian Furniture and Interiors and William M. Odom's History of Italian Furniture from the Fourteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries, have ministered to the general desire for information upon this topic. Various magazines, especially House and Garden and Good Furniture, have published sundry well illustrated articles upon the subject. The museums in different parts of the country have made praiseworthy efforts to acquire and to display appropriately the best specimens of Italian mobiliary art they could obtain. Architects and decorators have extensively employed Italian pieces in equipping houses with whose furnishing they were commissioned, and in numerous other ways a taste for Italian furniture has been so stimulated that furniture manufacturers are producing tables, chairs, chests, and other objects of domestic appointment from designs admittedly inspired by Italian models, while industrial art schools are paying more or less attention in their courses to the work of Renaissance Italian cabinet-makers.

On the one hand, in many cases where the design of houses has been perceptibly influenced by Italian ideas, there is naturally provided a background either suitable for the use of furniture of kindred provenance, or indeed actually requiring it. On the other hand, not a few interiors of composite and eclectic inspiration are so constituted architecturally that they supply a kindly foil and invite the employment of just such movables as Italian Renaissance design affords.

In either case a sound knowledge of the forms and methods practiced by the Italian craftsmen is an essential desideratum not only for the architect, the interior decorator, the furniture designer, and the student of industrial art, but also for the layman of cultivated tastes and a catholic sense of appreciation. Such a volume as this cannot fail, therefore, to be a welcome addition to the literature upon the subject - a literature that is none too large - and it will substantially contribute to foster understanding of a rich field of decorative art whence we may draw both pleasure and many a profitable lesson.

Study of the plates and the accompanying data will reveal not only a considerable diversity of decorative processes, used either singly or in combination, but also the workings of a marvellously fertile invention in the marshalling and adaptation of a wealth of decorative motifs. Each part of Italy was so strongly individual in its manifestations of the decorative arts, no less than in the developments of painting, sculpture, and architecture, that it is not surprising to find these local individualities plainly reflected in the furniture produced, although, of course, there is unmistakably present the bond of an informing spirit of design common throughout the whole country at any given period.

The plates in the ensuing pages are so arranged that it is possible to trace both the local differences and the general underlying similarity. The reader may examine Tuscan types in one place, Ligurian in another, Umbrian in a third division, and so on through Lombard, Venetian, Roman, and all other local manifestations. This arrangement of the book, in a manner conducive to convenient comparison and analysis, will be found one of its most valuable features.

Italian interiors of the period when the pieces illustrated were made, and for the appointment of which those pieces were intended, may be broadly classified as being severely restrained. Interiors of the former category were elaborate in the composition of their fixed decorations and displayed all the wealth of polychrome treatment that could be devised in the way of either frescoes or diapered patterns for the walls; not infrequently there was the added embellishment of panelling composed of carved and inlaid wood, or of colored marbles; and the ceilings, whether plastered and painted with glowing designs, or beamed with carved corbels and polychrome enrichment, correspond in splendor with the walls.

Interiors of the second category were simple in scheme, often to the extent of austerity, and depended for their distinction upon the emphasis of enrichment concentrated at one or more points where it would prove most effective. The concentrated enrichment might consist of the painted and gilt corbels, beams, and panels of the ceiling; of polychrome doors; or of an elaborately wrought fireplace. For the enhancement of the spots of color or carving, the plain walls served as admirable foils.

In either case it was necessary to the best results that the furniture be rich in quality. For the ornate interior, rich workmanship was essential to render the furniture in keeping with its highly organized background. On the other hand, richly wrought furniture in a room of austere character ensured the valuable element of contrast.

Italian rooms of the Renaissance period were sparsely furnished according to the notions of many people at the present day. In a country like Italy, where it is not only possible but inviting to live in the open for so great a part of the year, and where so much use is made of the gardens, there is no occasion for houses to be so fully furnished as in more northern latitudes where a far greater proportion of the time must inevitably be spent within doors.

When the domestic habits of the period, and other conditions also, dictated the employment of a relatively small number of pieces, it was possible, and indeed natural, in accordance with the ideal of quality rather than quantity, to make each item of furniture a finished work of art, complete in itself and not dependent upon adjacent pieces to give it its value. Even when cassoni were made in pairs, to give symmetry of contour in certain places, the decorations often displayed not a little variation. The masters of the time understood harmony without stupid iteration, and the pernicious idea of iresome "tweedle-dumand tweedle-dee" repetition in so-called suites was left to a less inventive age to exploit.

Another element that contributed to strong individualism exhibited by separate pieces was the fact that eminent artists in that age of manifold activities often "deemed it worthy of their best efforts to design a single piece of furniture and execute it with their own hands." When Botticelli or Andrea del Sarto, and the ablest of their pupils, painted cassone panels, or when Donatello or Bernardino Ferrante wrought the carving of a chest, a table, or a cassa panca, we may well understand why each object possessed so much character.

With some preliminary conception of the rooms themselves, and of the nature of the furniture that went into them, the student of Renaissance decorative art may go on to an intelligent appreciation of the pieces illustrated in this book. One fact, however, must be borne in mind. The compiler chose for illustration chiefly examples of what are usually called "museum pieces." Within the compass of a small book, where it is impossible adequately to illustrate the entire mobiliary development of an age, it is quite defensible to select the finest pieces of their several kinds for presentation. But we must remember that much of the simpler furniture of the period, while not possessing the sumptuous carved or painted enrichment of the master-pieces, nevertheless had a goodly share of grace of form and dignity of ornament.

Those minded to pursue the subject further will finr 4 admirable collections accessible for study in the museums of the Italian cities, in the South Kensington Museum in London, and in the different American museums - especially in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn and Chicago - where new acquisitions are continually being made and where every facility is placed at the disposal of the student.

The invitation to work upon a second edition of the Manual of Italian Furniture of the Renaissance came to me from the House that published it in 1902, with an accompanying question regarding translations. This gave me agreeable proof of consideration for my efforts to bring together the widely distributed, and tor the most part neglected, material, which I have endeavored to place in its order with reference to the period and the school to which it belonged. I know that it was only an attempt, and that it is on the whole, the first, so in many respects it needs completion and rectification. Although the value of their art handicraft is well understood in Italy, the authorities, until now, have fur the most part hindered any consideration of it, on account of their anxiety to keep their pictures and works of art in the country. Unfortunately, in the meantime the ever-diminishing stock of old furniture will be so thoroughly ransacked by the art dealer that, later, what has been neglected can never be recovered. Italy is indebted to several art inspired collectors and dealers that there are at present in Italian museums the beginnings, at least after some correction, of a number of excellent collections. Ahead of all the rest are those of the Marchese d'Azeglio, in the Museo Civico at Turin and in his castle in the hills of Piedmont; ot Cav. Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, whose museum is the foremost art foundation of Italy; of the brothers Bagatti-Valsecchi in Milan: of the Frenchman, A. Carrand, who in his collection of small works of art and in the art craft work of the National Museum of Florence, has left behind him a priceless gift; of the dealer in antiques, Elia Volpi, who in fitting up his admirably restored Davanzati-Davizzi palace in Florence, has given a wonderful example of Italian furniture and its placement. Since a satisfactorily complete assemblage of these things is no longer possible, it is the more important that those scattered about in the museums and found in the collections of other countries should be intelligently sifted and the results compiled. In order, however, gradually to arrive at a trustworthy representation of the house furnishings of the different parts of Italy, it should be the special task of our Italian colleagues to bring together as completely as possible, the material concerning them to be found in contemporary pictures, documents, and writings; a task which I, unfortunately, on account of my age as well as my infirmity, cannot undertake.

For help in my work I have particularly to thank the great Italian dealers in antiques through whose hands, for the last ten years, the most and the best of Italian furniture has passed, and especially Messrs. Stefano Bardini, Elia Volpi, and Lu; gi Grassi, of Florence.