cassone

American  

[kuh-soh-nee, kahs-saw-ne] / kəˈsoʊ ni, kɑsˈsɔ nɛ /

noun

cassoni plural

1. a large Italian chest of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, usually highly ornamented.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cassoni
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cassone

1880–85; < Italian, equivalent to cass ( a ) box ( see case ²) + -one augmentative suffix

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cassone cassoni

The second piece is a panoramic picture of a procession in Ancient Rome that once was a panel of a cassone, an expensive chest for clothes and domestic items.

From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2015

I have been calculating"—Mr. Buzzacott turned his pale green eyes towards his guest—"that I may be able to afford that pretty little cinque cassone, after all.

From Mortal Coils by Huxley, Aldous

There was the huge Italian cassone, with its fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which he had so often hidden himself as a boy.

From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde, Oscar

There are the thousand francs safe to hand in the cassone, and what, pray, is it we miss?

From Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes by Clippinger, Erle Elsworth

By the first short flight of steps, and between the two columns, is a seat made of a Persian chest or cassone, beautiful and unusual in shape, and richly inlaid.

From Frederic Lord Leighton An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work by Rhys, Ernest

Miriam Schapiro, Brach's wife, shows a series of panels, similar in motif to Renaissance cassoni, or hope chests, in which she paints the fertility symbol of an egg.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is probable the furniture matched the style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on carved chairs and cassoni.

From Fra Bartolommeo by Kendrick, Flora

I found beautiful things, but all large, cassoni, high-backed, carved arm-chairs and Venetian mirrors, but the prices were awful and the things much too big.

From Italian Letters of a Diplomat's Life January-May, 1880; February-April, 1904 by Waddington, Mary Alsop King

Here the spirit of luxury was satisfied by beautiful designs for ornaments, dress stuffs, tapestries, vases and "cassoni," &c., which brought beauty into every life, and made each house a poem.

From Fra Bartolommeo by Kendrick, Flora

The panels of the painted cassoni frequently bore representations of scriptural and mythological subjects, or incidents derived from the legends of chivalry.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 4 "Carnegie Andrew" to "Casus Belli" by Various