Cassone (Marriage Chest)

The rectangular medallions on this marriage chest illustrate two of the Triumphs (I trionfi), a series of allegorical poems by the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch. As befits this type of domestic object, often associated with a dowry, the scenes depict themes relating to marriage: the Triumph of Chastity on the left and the Triumph of Love on the right. Allegorical figures representing these virtues are shown seated on carts, the heroes of their respective processions, in a playful reference to the ancient Roman practice of according a victor in battle a formal welcome to a city. While some cassoni had painted panels inserted into them, this one employs a different form of decoration. Through shallow relief carving, the forms and scroll patterns emerge like cutouts from the background, which is punched with a fine lozenge pattern. The dark areas that resemble drawn lines were rendered by pyrography, or marks applied with a heated metal implement.