Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (35.1994)

clothes, including among other things the characteristic headgears.53 It is hoped that
one day sources of some kind will be discovered clarifying both the question of datę
and provenance.

Similarly, both in the cases of cassonidepicting the story of Lucretia painted by the
Master of Ladislas of Durazzo, the Warsaw cassone, as well as the three others
originating from the same workshop, it is possible to put forward the supposition of
the great popularity of this theme, presented in this latter case only in four scenes with
narration concentrated on key events, accompanied all the same by personifications
of the virtues.

And no w, finally, we should attempt to answer the question why this after all tragic
story of Lucretia became one of the most popular themes depicted on cassoni, and at
the same time what are the ideological contents of the Warsaw cassone.54 The answer
to such questions would seem, as in the case of other heroines almost as frequently
portrayed on cassoni, and thus among others of Suzanna and Virginia, at least in part
quite obvious.55 Cassoninuzialiserving the purpose of bedroom furniture with images
of famous women figures were doubtlessly intended to constantly recall the ideals of
a beautiful and virtuous wife. It is worth bearing in mind at this point that it was not at
all rare in 1 5th century Florence, for example, the age difference between a wife and
husband exceeded 15 years.56 Moreover, in merchant and banking cities, it would
have been the rule rather than exception for husbands to travel regularly away from
home. Scenes of Lucretia stabbing herself would certainly have called to mind the
words from Ab urbe condita: „nor in time to come shall ever unchaste woman live
through the example of Lucretia". These words were repeated almost exactly at the
end of a short dialogue written in c. 1 390 by the famous chancellor of Florence from
1 375 to 1 406, Coluccio Salutati and known under the title of Declamatio Lucretiae.

, nis dialogue became one of the most widely read literary works of the Renaissance:
morę than fifty 1 5th century manuscripts originating from various parts of Italy have
survived.57 With this literary work the tragic story of Lucretia and the banishing from
Romę of the tyrant-king took on a new literary significance.58 Many texts written by
humanists such as Salutati or his pupil and successor, Leonardo Bruni led to the
history of the Roman Republic being adopted to a large degree as the history of
Florence and numerous other city-republics in Tuscany and Umbria, while the Roman
heroes and heroines were frequently drawn upon as symbols.59 In one of his speeches,
Salutati placed the Florentine citizen's expressis verbis on the same level as that of
a Citizen of the Roman Republic.60

Most cassoni depicting the story of Lucretia, including the Warsaw cassone,
portray Tarquin's banishment from Romę, thereby expressing the end of tyrany and
birth of the republic. In Valerius Maximus's Factorum et dictorum memorabilium we
can read that Lucretia ,,interemit causamque tam animoso interitu imperium consulare
pro regio permutandipopulo Romano preabuit" and according to Petrarch, after the
king's death ,,an epoch of freedom (libertas) was begun".61 Many city-republics,
including Florence, Siena and Perugia, were invaded on numerous occasions at the
end of the 14th and throughout the first half of the 1 5th centuries by tyrant-leaders,
such as Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan and his son, Filippo Maria, or Ladislas,
King of Naples.62The banishing of Tarquin, portrayed nextto Justitiacould have been
not only a picture of justice being done for the raping of Lucretia, but also a reminder in
a domestic milieu of the threats to libertas from tyrants or victories over them.63 It is
worth bearing in mind that both Giangaleazzo Visconti and Ladislas of Naples were
incapable of maintaining their control over Tuscany and Umbria (neither of them ever
succeeded in taking Florence), and that both died unexpectedly, the former in 1402

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