When and how did the furniture appear?
... came closer to his today simple shape. The closet was not furniture, but a simple trough into the wall; a deep, tall and wide niche closed with a door. This closet didn’t serve for clothes, underwear or footwear; all these were kept in boxes, chests. In Antiquity, only in the shops you could find closets; in the Imperial Age the Romans will have in their houses a kind of shop window-closet in witch they exhibited their portraits, busts or wax masks of the family ancestors. In the Dark Age the closet existed only in the monasteries, where it sheltered manuscripts and sacred objects. Only in 1500 the closet made its entrance into people’s houses for keeping clothes- witch were kept in big wood boxes. Unlike the bed and the closet, the table has a respectable age. At the Egyptians its shape was not very different from ours; only the legs were usually sculptured, representing animal heads or paws. The same at the Greeks and Romans; at the last the usual table was round with three or four legs. In the dining room, in triclinium the Romans built a table of bricks. In the Dark Age, at senior feasts, the tables were disposed in shape of horseshoe; the company sat on the exterior side of the semicircle. Only in the XVI-th century the board will be fixed of the table’s legs; the table becoming furniture. In the next centuries the appearance of this furniture will get the elegance and the individuality of the different art styles. In the XVIII-th century will appear the little table beside the bed-the night table. The chair is pretty old too. The Egyptian chairs, for instance, had a very high back and pillows. At the Greeks and Romans you could meet very often the ‘X’ shape chair (like the folding chairs today) but with a back that barely reached under the shoulder blade of who sat on it. Interesting at the Romans was the folding chair without a back- sella curulis; it was the official chair reserved for the emperors and high statesmen. The Byzantine chair; with the space between the four legs filled with painted batten boards had a straight and high back. But much higher were the chairs’ backs from the Dark Age witch, in the noblemen houses, necessarily had sculptured the master’s coat of arms. In the Dark Age appeared also the wheel chairs for old folk and for patients. Starting from the Renaissance the chair knew – through the shapes’ fantasy and distinction, fabrics and frame’s quality – an extraordinary career as a luxury piece with the table. A career witch took almost five centuries until the last century the chairs achieved the sobriety of lines and the pure functionality of today. We can not remember also that special type of chair, the so called chaise percee, with a hole in shape of circle, responding at a certain physical necessity; the piece of furniture witch the Sun King used also during the too long reunions. Here is also some information about the human’s daily life: data about the objects that are a part of the cutlery. Their appearance and evolution are known from documents and archeological certifications. First about the spoon: the first discovered spoons were made of burnt clay. From the ancient Egyptians we have the first metal spoons- bronze, iron, silver and even golden- with complicated handles and nicely decorated. But… they did not serve as table spoons but as make-up remover. The Greek and the Romans had only big kitchen spoons, instead of the today’s ladles; we don’t know for sure if they knew the table spoon for eating. From the Dark Age, the museums keep different types of spoons- made of wood, cornelian, ivory, even silver and gold, with very short handles. In the XVI-th century the spoons –having sometimes a folding handle- were decorated with antique motives or sacred effigies- when they were the mandatory gift from the godfather at a child’s immersion. Finally, its actual shape dates only from the XVII-th century. The knife: the first knives were of course simple sharpen and carved blades made of silex- witch after the appearance of metals was replaced with bronze or iron blades. The Greek and the Romans made the knife a refined and luxury object: sometimes with a bone or ivory blade or with golden or silver handles- there were knives for cutting fruit and even knives for cutting nails! The table knives had a sharp handle top: this it was dug into the piece of meat taken to the mouth. Many kinds of knives, having different destinations appeared in the Dark Age; among these the knife with a folding handle and with more blades, a file, a bodkin and scissors. At this time the knives usually three were kept by the company invited at a table in a leather bag at...