Although many people think that the bidet was invented in Italy, its history starts in France, to be precise in 1700, when Christophe Des Rosiers, who is considered its inventors,  installed one on them in the bathroom of Madame De Prie, the then wife of the French Prime Minster.

It was called the “chair of cleaning”: the name “bidet” in French means also “pony”, and the device took this name because of the position that persons have when they use it, the same as when you ride a horse.

Following the example of Madam De Prie, 100 bidets were installed at the Royal Palace of Versailles, that were removed after some few years. But they were still used in brothels. Its diffusion in France never took off.

So, now the history of bidet arrives in Italy. Here, in the second half of the eighteenth century, Maria Carolina d’Asburgo-Lorena, queen of Napoli, wanted a bidet in every bathroom of its Royal Palace of Caserta.

In those days, the bidet was just a metallic basin which was places inside a wood structure “that looks like a guitar”. This was the definition that the officialdoms of the House of Savoy gave to the bidets which were found in the Royal Palace of Caserta after the Unification of Italy.

The introduction of the bidet, as it’s known today, happened in 1900, thanks to the diffusion of the first hydraulic systems in private homes, where the bidet is place in the bathroom near the wc, and not in the bedroom as before.

This is the particularly history of the bidet, from the “unknown object that looks like a guitar” to nowadays, a sanitary ware with various and sophisticated forms. The App line recently presented by Flaminia, it’s an example of modern and elegant sanitary ware.

Image source: Ceramica Flaminia