Credenza

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The credenza was originally a functioning sideboard intended for the preparation and serving of food, but it evolved in the late Middle Ages into a display for expensive plates and other vessels and was thus often draped in luxurious fabrics. Whereas most medieval furniture has suffered from use and climate over the centuries, this credenza is unusually well preserved. It has been attributed to the brother Lorenzo (1425–1477) and Cristoforo Canozi (ca. 1426–1491) from Lendinara, in northern Italy, and associated with their early style. The piece is decorated with a total of eight panels. The top two-thirds of each panel contains a circular form resembling a rose window, with a row of intricate lancets below; square fields, each covered with rectilinear patterns in intarsia, occupy the bottom thirds of the panels. The six panels that form the front face are divided into three pairs of doors, each opening into a two-shelf interior where dishes could be stored.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art