The Gothic furniture style, although exceedingly popular…

The Gothic furniture style, although exceedingly popular in northern Europe, has made scant progress in Italy, where a new style is rapidly developing.

This so-called Renaissance style, a mixture of native Greco-Roman forms and Eastern ideas derived from Constantinople, imposes far more elaborate decoration than did its Romanesque predecessor upon furniture, which is constructed by cabinetmakers evolving into artists who add Eastern stars, crescents, and arabesques to the stock Gothic motifs.

Mill-sawed and lathe-turned wood, increasingly widely available, results in lighter, well-constructed furnishings.

An expanded wood repertoire includes walnut, pine, ebony, and other woods.

Renaissance furniture begins to feature intarsia, the inlay in wood of bone, shell, and metal.

Gilding, in disuse since Roman times, becomes popular again.

New kinds of furniture appear, such as the Italian "cassone," a very large storage chest, and …