Some history about Thonet's phenomenon. The phenomenon about production of bentwood furniture is quite interesting: before all with its rising it represents one of the first example of industrial production, then it's a phenomenon that, although in a different manner, has'nt even today stopped yet. It wouldn't be right to believe that these light pieces of furniture in beechwood were born from a great idea of a man and immediately produced in the way and in the shape we know them today: it is a question of furniture born trough a long and exhausting alternation of tries and mistakes. To Michael Thonet, german, belongs the title of inventor of the process of production and of designer of the models, even though some cabinet-makers had tried before him to produce furniture with the same procedure. To forge the wood and give it harmonious and articulate shapes was not a simple work; in his first experiments Thonet used small pieces of veneers cut into strips along the grain: these were boiled in glue and then put in moulds to get a certain shape; it was just after a lot of years of tries, a few successes and a lot of problems that he had the idea to produce his furniture using solid beech-wood rods. Some models, especially those particularly rich and complicated, like chair no.22, often splitted easily where the bending process had too violently changed the original shape of the wood and had worked beyond its natural elasticity. To solve this inconvienence genial was the idea to attach a metal strip at both ends of the rod and then to begin the bending process. Meanwhile Thonet had moved to Vienna with his family, where his production enjoyed the approbation of Prince of Metternich and of the Emperor himself: it is an entire success. Though initially protected by regular privileges, at their expiry Thonet was surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs willing to produce bentwood furniture; begins the period of concurrence with nowadays known Companies like Kohn and Fischel, Companies that, to compete with Gebruder Thonet had to invest enormously in specialised hand-labour, machineries, tools and wood: Thonet infact has already opened many factories and he is now oriented to mass-production. Models produced by competitors are, at least at the beginning, an exact copy of Gebruder Thonet's once and this makes it indispensable to use fire marks or paper labels due to attest tha authenticity of a certain piece of furniture. Italy as well, altough with a little delay, begins the production of bent-wood furniture.The most active areas are in the provinces of Udine and Neaples. In Udine rises in 1882 a Company called "Società Anonima Antonio Volpe" which will produce different pieces valuable for their design and manufacture; among them the most renowned "egg" rocking chair, ascribed to the genius of J. Hoffmann and whose real inventor is still unknown. Infact at the beginning of XX century a long and profitable co-operation starts between Companies and the most important architects and designers, collaboration that will give new fortune to bent-wood furniture; names like the same Hoffmann, Kammerer, Gustav Siegel and Kolo Moser designed and produce pieces of furniture still considered milestones of design's history. Hotels, theatres, cafè, different places of social and cultural meetings, were soon furnished with the most various models of bentwood furniture; style and fashion changed and with them furniture's shape. Still today different factories produce the most common models which have become pre-eminently classics. The "Neueste Nachrichten" of 19th March 1862, publishing the first ever advertisement for Thonet furniture.