Armchair - so called Savonarola chair

The chair can be folded by lifting. Its scissors-like structure consists of parallel, curved ribs. The companion piece is in the collection of the Berlin Kunstgewerbe Museum. This piece next to the "Dante-chair" was the most typical armchair of the Italian renaissance. It was named after Savonarola (1452-1498), the Prior of the monastery of San Marco in Florence. The folding chair originated in Egypt, although it often appears on Greek-Roman vases. The direct ancestor was the medieval faldistorium: it was this piece of furniture that developed into folding chairs, such as the sedia Savonarola and sedia Dantesca, at the end of the Italian quattrocento.