RENAISSANCE: '400

FABER FURNITURE presents
INSIDE CLASSIC FURNITURE: By Alberto Vincenzo Vaccari Professor of history of styles, author of "Inside Furniture", consultant for Faber Furniture.

"Exploring the 15th century and the Renaissance period, we undertake a fascinating journey through the history of furniture, with the aim of creating that atmosphere that has been revived in the deftness of Expert Artisans, who are direct descendants of the antique workshops that lived and created art".

History of furniture "Styles"

History
The Renaissance was born in Italy through a human and artistic ideal renewal. After laying down his sword, the Medieval Cavalier with his noble gestures, champion of good over evil (St. George who killed the dragon and freed the maiden imprisoned in the tower) became a sophisticated and cultured man, who now conquered power through trade and money - like Frederick, Duke of Urbino or the Medici family in Florence, Estense in Ferrara, Gonzaga in Mantova. The new "lords" of the town were surrounded by academics and artists, in the revival of classic "Greek-Roman" art, which gave the idea and the name to the new style. Through "Humanism" the man who had been created by God was now placed at the centre of the universe (as Leonardo suggested, in his famous drawing of a male figure inside a circle), and therefore everything that had been created became a gift from God, and therefore everything was "lovely". With Leon Battista Alberti (philosopher architect of the Humanism movement), and the work of new architectural conception by Brunelleschi (first great architect of the Renaissance period), together with Donatello for culture and Masaccio for painting, the picture was completed that elected Florence as the indisputable capital of the Renaissance. Everything was then finally defined with Leonardo, Raffaello and Michelangelo.

Costumes and society
With the new fashion, etiquette and ostentation also flourished, and the desire to adorn both the town and the home, with statues, perspectives of squares and gardens, garlands, ribbons, fruit and flower festoons during parties. Female, and male, costumes were seeking new and more refined elegance, new clothes and jewellery, new hairstyles. Numerous workshops were born, divided into co-operations, for making the most varied objects, to make the "town-palace" more precious. The art of wood working, previously almost exclusively for the Church, now had its own stylistic standards through the co-operation of "wood workers". In this way, the taste for "lovely" was born, for a classic piece of furniture that was meant to last.

Architecture
The castle became a palace and the Gothic Cathedral became a Roman Basilica and then Cathedral. In fact, it was the Cathedral of S. Mary of the Flowers in Florence, and in particular with the Brunelleschi cupola, that the beginning of Renaissance was attributed to architecture. With the removal of all defensive ambitions, the palaces were ornated with decorative elements, like the ashlar work on the Ruccellai dell'Alberti Palace in Florence, the diamond forms on the Diamond Palace by Biagio Rossetti in Ferrara. They tried to elaborate the forms of the Greek temples with gables, columns and capitals, like the Palladian Basilica in Vicenza, adding round Roman style vaults, which replaced the Gothic ogival arches. Palaces with a quadrangular form became small societies, with internal courtyards where the octagonal well in the middle took on the form of a vase. The workshops were on the ground floor, with entrances opening onto the courtyard. A large hall led up to the first floor or "reception floor" with respective honour lounge, and the second floor was reached by a smaller stairway, which was for the private use of the lady of the manor. The servants' rooms were in the attic, and sometimes the kitchens too, like in the Davanzati Palace in Florence, which was transformed from a tower home to an elegant residence. The Strozzi Palace (1450), is the one which more than any other summarises this Renaissance perfection: a square "domus" equal on all sides, three orders with two large entrances on opposite sides and a bench shaped stone base that runs around the entire perimeter. The roof with its large cornice moulded with dentils and pod-shapes, caps the whole structure, removing the exaggerated verticality given by the crenellations of previous times. Inside, there were steps, small pillars, small columns and capitals in grey stone, while the rest of the building was whitewashed, thus distinguishing the bearing structures and the embellishing parts from that which should have seemed empty space. In churches, like in the palace lounges, marble was beginning to replace terracotta for floors, while the ceiling beams were embellished with so-called "lacunar" motifs, enriched with gold leaf frames, like the famous ceiling in the sixteen-century lounge in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

Stylistic methods
All the stylistic methods were elaborated and adopted from classic art, from the square shape of the beginning of fifteenth century renaissance, to the perfection of the circle of "completed renaissance" in the sixteenth century. Columns and grooved pilasters, capitals and bases, round vaults and niches where the white marble statues or the famous Della Robbia "glazed pottery" were placed, frames, dentels, ovules and pod-shapes, and anything else that could be added to the sober elegance of classic style architecture. To this, lions' feet were added taken from Roman sarcophagi, especially for the furniture, together with festoons and cornucopia with cascading fruit, leaves and flowers, the symbol of plenty.

Furniture
In Ecclesiastic furniture the importance of wooden choirs was slowly diminishing, to the extent that, with the Council of Trent, they were finally removed from the centre of the churches where they had been placed, and moved behind the altar, with benches and lecterns being transformed into dressers, giving life to new surroundings more like the richer vestries. Thus the vestry dressers were born, with predellas with dresser fronts, immediately imitated in domestic handicrafts, and rapidly introduced into the honour lounge in the Palaces. In the centre of the lounge there was a long, narrow table, irremovable and solid, with vase shaped legs where the palace or noble family coat of arms was sculptured, gothic chests were transformed into Roman sarcophagi with pointed cornices, lion's feet and cusps on the top, painted or worked in gold plated tablets. Canopies were removed from the beds to be replaced with four twisted columns with Roman crowns. But it was the evolution of a myriad of benches and chairs where the new furniture reached its height, seeking the comfort typical of palaces, which was previously unknown in castle life. With entrance benches, Dante style chairs, Savonarola chairs and the first big chairs with leather worked into the seats.

Materials and building techniques
As far as furniture was concerned, the preferred wood in the Renaissance period was walnut, with a marble effect it was used everywhere, even in those parts that were not on show. For the more humble furniture, besides walnut chestnut or poplar were used. Iron locks and hinges were no longer important, while carving, tempera, certosina marquetry and gold plated pastel all took on fundamental importance. With the oncome of the workshops, the construction techniques gradually became more refined, with dovetail joints, wood cuts of three centimetres or more, processing the turnings, etc..