This impressive marriage chest is said to have come from the Palazzo Strozzi, and it has the Strozzi emblem of a flacon perched on a caltrop (a spiky metal weapon) with a banderole inscribed ME[Z]ZE—probably a reference to the half-moons in their armorial device. The form of the cassone evokes classical sarcophagi. The painted front does not belong to this chest but is contemporary with it. It shows a battle before the city of Trebizond; Constantinople is seen at the upper left. In the foreground is a battle between Ottoman and Byzantine troops. Trebizond fell to the Ottomans in 1461, but the ruler seated beneath a canopy is identified as Tamerlane (ca. 1336–1405), the Mongolian emperor who defeated the Ottoman sultan at Ankara in 1402. These historical anachronisms have not been explained, but the advance of the Ottomans was something that preoccupied all of Europe—not least those with mercantile interests in the Middle East.
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