Panel from a Cassone: The Race of the Palio in the Streets of Florence

About the Artwork

A cassone was a wooden chest used for the storage of clothing, an essential piece of furniture in Italian homes during the Renaissance and often produced in matched sets. The cassone was often made on the occasion of a marriage and elaborately decorated with painted scenes and gilded moldings. This panel comes from such a painted cassone. It was not uncommon for the painted decoration to represent a memorable event at the time of the marriage. This scene depicts the end of the Palio, a horse race held in the streets of Florence on the Feast of John the Baptist (June 24). The panel from the other side of the cassone is now preserved in the Bargello Museum in Florence and shows the procession of the Palii banners before the race. The cassone commemorates a wedding between members of the Fini and Aldobrandini families in 1418.

Exhibition history

Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916). The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936). Exhibition of Lorenzo Il Magnifico E Le Arti. Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, Italy (organizer) (May 4-October 31, 1949). Art: The International Language. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 4, 1956). Gothic Art 1360-1440. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 6-September 15, 1963). Florence and the Arts: Five Centuries of Patronage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 13-September 19, 1971). Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 22-March 17, 1985).

Quick Overview

Artist: Giovanni Francesco Toscani (Italian, c. 1380–1430)
Date: 1418
Medium: tempera and gold on wood
Dimensions: Framed: 46.5 x 143.5 x 7 cm (18 5/16 x 56 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 42.1 x 139.5 cm (16 9/16 x 54 15/16 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: Painting
Department: Medieval Art
Credit line: Holden Collection
Accession no.: 1916.801

Provenance

Marchese Bartolini-Salimbeni (1741); Pitti coll., Florence (1798); James Jackson Jarves (1884); Mrs. Liberty E. Holden

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.