Italian Baroque interior design

[1] Responding to the Protestant Reformation, the Curia started the Counter-Reformation (after the Council of Trent), a period in which Church policies and influence abroad would be strengthened.

Carlo Fontana was called upon shortly after 1692 to design a supporting base for a porphyry tavola, or table-slab, for the bapistry of St Peter's; it was enriched with bronze ornaments and the Pignatelli arms of Pope Innocent XI.

[3] Architects had been called upon since the days of Buontalenti to design such marble or pietra dura tables on bases for the centers of grand spaces.

As this was an age where learning and patronage of the arts were considered desirable pursuits for nobles, the bookcase came out of the private studiolo to furnish state apartments as an object of display.

Roman carvers' shops outshone the more modest craft of cabinetmaking, as demanding commissions overseen by architects for carved decors, frames, altar candle stands, confessionals and pulpits came in a steady stream to furnish churches and semi-public chapels.

[1] The offer of an armchair continued to convey elite status: inventories record a single one or a pair in rooms where the seating otherwise was on armless side-chairs, sgabelli of traditional construction – now enriched with bold sculpture – and stools.

[1] After the mid-17th century, the state bed also came to provide the expected climax of the sequence of rooms in a Baroque apartment, following precedents established in France.

[4] Venetians, who at the time still held a vast sea empire, often imported rich fabrics and materials from other nations to enrich their furniture with eastern influences.

Palazzi were usually lavish and sumptuous, whilst middle-class town/country houses were usually much plainer, with simple wooden beds, x-framed chairs and big cassoni, or chests.

[4] Carved wood often was gilded in gold or bronze,[4] and table legs were mainly caryatids or muscular figures made to appear as if they were holding the marble slab on top.

Lion commodes often were made of walnut or oak,[4] pearl, jewels and ivory, crafted in fantastical and allegorical designs incorporating angels, animals, leaves, saints and flowers.

Unlike other trompe-l'oeil techniques or precedent di sotto in sù ceiling decorations, which often rely on intuitive artistic approaches to deception, quadratura is directly tied to 17th-century theories of perspective and representation of architectural space.

[6] Due to its reliance on perspective theory, it more fully unites architecture, painting and sculpture and gives a more overwhelming impression of illusionism than earlier examples.

The steep foreshortening of the figures, the painted walls and pillars, creates an illusion of deep recession, heavenly sphere or even an open sky.