Sgabello

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A 16th-century French walnut sgabello (Walters Art Museum)

A sgabello is a type of stool typical of the Italian Renaissance. An armchair with armrests usually was a chair (sedia) of hieratic(hierarchic?) significance. Sgabelli were typically made of walnut and included a variety of carvings and turned elements. The legs could be either two decorated boards with a stretcher for support, or three separate ornamented and carved impost legs. This seat was often placed in hallways, carved with a family's imprese or emblem drawn from its coat-of-arms. Its primary purpose was decorative, therefore the seat was not necessarily comfortable. Similar chairs were made in France, where they were known as a side chair. These had solid supports called rhombus seat supports. They were not used as stools.

Gallery

• 
  Italian 16th Century, Walnut Stool (Sgabello), Carved and Gilded, c. 1540–1560, National Gallery of Art
• 
  Members of an Amsterdam schutterscompagnie painted in 1653 are seated on sgabelli that may have been heirlooms, as are the silver objects they inspect and display.
• 
  16th century sgabello of archbishop Joan Terès i Borrull.
• 
  Sgabello, 16th-century.

External links

• Encyclopædia Britannica article
• Rijksmuseum.nl