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Medieval Florence -Type of Furniture

Furniture had to be built respecting the detailed regulations contained in the Statutes of the Wood-makers Guild (Arte dei Legnaiuoli).
In the fourteenth century they decreed that only one kind of wood be used for each piece of furniture.
The planks had to be of equal thickness and without lists or moldings which might conceal joints or illegal veneering.
The height, length and width of each piece was established by the Rectors of the Guild.
If a piece of furniture of unusual size ('isfoggiato’) was to be made to order for a wealthy citizen the master craftsman had to obtain a license and pay a tax.

While there were small folding tables, on the whole tables were relatively rare.
Meals were generally eaten on boards placed on trestles which were removed after the meal.

As early as the eleventh century the bed was enclosed in a curtain; around the end of the twelfth and in the fourteenth century the name 'camera' was given to the canopy, which formed a small isolated room within the bedroom.
Important personages often used this room for receptions.

Illumination was with tallow candles and oil lamps for everyday purposes, with wax candles in the houses of the wealthy and wax torches for holidays.

Toilets (also called 'privati’, 'agiamenti’, 'guardarobe’, 'luoghi comuni’, 'necessari’) were already used in the thirteenth century but became more widespread in the following century and only in the houses of the wealthy, while there were none at all in the middle and lower class houses.
They were often situated in small closets that jutted out from the house onto a secondary lane.

The statutes of the fourteenth century established that the waste could no longer be emptied directly on the lane, and that the latrines had to be emptied at the owner's expense in the external ditches of the city or in the Arno.
A public employee supervised these operations.
Water from the sinks and refuse was gathered in a subterranean cistern or in a secondary lane which then emptied via a canal into the sewers in the street.

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