credenza
Illustration — 1950s-style credenza • Illustration — 15th- or 16th-century Italian credenza • Illustration — Modern built-in or fitted credenza A credenza is a dining room sideboard or display cabinet, usually made of burnished and polished wood and decorated with marquetry. The top would often be made of marble, or another decorative liquid- and heat-resistant stone. The credenza started as a rough table with a cloth draped over it.
Also recorded as Credenzas
credenza
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- Field
- sideboard · cupboard
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wikipedia incomplete · checked 25 September 2026
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Authority files
gnd · 243870-7 · wikidata · Q16676881 · wikipedia · Credenza
In this article
Etymology
In early 14th-century Italy, it took on an architectural form with column and pilaster decorations. In modern times, a credenza is more often a type of sideboard used in the home or restaurant. In dining rooms, it is typically made from wood and used as a platform to serve buffet meals. In restaurant kitchens, made from stainless steel, it provides a side surface and storage cupboards. It can also be used to refer to office storage; both above and below a desk space.
Originally in Italian the name meant belief or trust (etymologically connected to the English word "credence"). In the 16th century, the act of credenza was the tasting of food and drinks by a servant for a lord or other important person (such as the pope or a cardinal) in order to test for poison. The name may have passed then to the room where the act took place, then to the furniture.
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority file
- Gemeinsame Normdatei 243870-7, Simposio Internazionale sulla Credenza.
Unverified · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
reference work
- “Credenza”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q16676881: credenza
Unverified · Wikidata
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Merriam-Webster Online: Credenza: "a sideboard, buffet, or bookcase patterned after a Renaissance CREDENCE; especially: one without legs" .
- 2.Credenza is in the March 2014 online update of the OED as "A sideboard, free-standing cupboard, or storage chest, orig. Italian or of Italian style", expanding the 1989 print edition's "A sideboard". It also appears in OED as Credence, as well as in John Gloag, A Short Dictionary of Furniture (London, 1977), where Credence is described as "a small side-table for vessels, used as a serving table", noting 16th-century usage and quoting John Britton, A Dictionary of the Art and Archaeology of the Middle Ages 1838: "a shelf-like projection placed across a piscina, or within a niche as a place for sacred vessels used at mass; also a buffet or sideboard for plate".
- 3.Payne. Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Furniture. Harper & Row. 24. 1989. 9780060161415.
- 4.credenza. Dizionario Etimologico Online.
Citations
References
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authority file
Gemeinsame Normdatei 243870-7, Simposio Internazionale sulla Credenza.Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolvedauthority record
Unverified
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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