The Italian _Cassoni_, or marriage-coffers, were the most ornate and most imposing articles of furniture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were placed in the long halls and corridors of the palaces and great houses, and were usually given as presents to newly married couples. They were generally used as the receptacle for the bride’s trousseau and other treasures. In the latter century they were carved in walnut with sculptural mythological subjects, and had endings or corners of half-figures and half-foliage, as caryatids, with feet designed from the claws of animals to raise them from the ground (Fig. 233). The carving was relieved by gilding in parts, and sometimes the whole of it was gilt. Other examples of an earlier date were covered with a finely modelled decoration of gesso work, and gilded, and in other cases the large panels in the front were painted with figure subjects in brilliant colours and heightened with gold. A less costly kind of marriage coffer was made in cypress-wood, and fitted up in the inside with drawers, having the decoration on the surface engraved or etched in brown lines, with the ground slightly recessed and punched or stamped with a fine ornamentation. [Illustration: Fig. 234.—Italian Work; Sixteenth Century. (P.)] In the Kensington Museum there is an extensive collection of Italian cassoni embracing all the above varieties. Chairs carved and gilt of the same style and period as the coffers were usually placed between the rows of the latter in the halls of the Italian palaces (Fig. 235). These chairs had their backs and legs richly carved, each part being made out of a single slab of wood. The pair of bellows (Fig. 234) is a further illustration of the design and excellence of workmanship as shown in the work of the wood carvers of Italy in the sixteenth century, or “Cinquecento” period. Another fine specimen of wood carving is the Italian stool (Fig. 236) of the same date, which is remarkable for its delicacy of treatment. Another form of chair of a rectangular character, with or without arms, having an embossed leather or velvet covering on the back and seat, with turned and carved legs and rails, was made in Italy about this time (Fig. 237); it was much used subsequently in Spain, France, and in England, and has continued to be in favour down to the present day. Cabinets were made in Italy and in France in which slabs of beautifully coloured and veined marbles and rare stones were inserted as panels in various shapes, to which the name of “pietra-dura” work has been given. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries painted plaques of porcelain took the place of these marbles. In England, France, Spain, and Germany, the great houses, both private and religious, and the king’s palaces were elaborately furnished, and kept in a state of great splendour. [Illustration: Fig. 235.—Chair; Italian; Sixteenth Century. (P.)]