Chest (known as Cassone dei Tre Duchi)

A chest, along with a table, a chair and a bed, formed part of
the furniture that was indispensable and most common in the late Middle Ages
and the Renaissance. Its
long, narrow, low structure made it an extremely useful and versatile piece of
furniture, easily adaptable to various requirements, which could be used as a
table-top, storage for clothes and tableware, or as seating. Capacious and manoeuvrable, it was easy to
move, thus facilitating removals - very frequent among the aristocracy - from
one residence to another. The
Chest of the Three Dukes, a variation of the "cassone istoriato", represents a procession on horseback,
where Galeazzo Maria Sforza, his son Gian Galeazzo and Ludovico Maria Sforza
parade one after the other. The
chest was probably made for the marriage of Chiara Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo
Maria, with Count Pietro dal Verme (1480), whose dominion extended along the
entire eastern shore of Lake Como, or with Fregosino Fregoso (1488) Duke of
Genoa in 1488. It was greatly altered in the nineteenth century and only the original
front remains. It was
purchased in 1877 by Pietro Ghinzoni, who donated the piece to the Municipality
of Milan in 1893.

A twentieth-century copy exists in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.