BASSANO  , a

city of Venetia, Italy, in the province of Vicenza, 24 M . N.E. of Vicenza and 30 M . N. of Padua by rail, at the foot of the Venetian Alps . Pop . (1901) town, 7553 ; commune, 15,097 . It is well situated upon the Brenta, which is here spanned by a covered wooden bridge, and commands fine views . The castle, erected by the Ezzelini in the 13th century, lies in the upper portion of the town, above the river; a tower, erected by a member of the same family, is a conspicuous feature . The museum and cathedral and some of the other churches contain pictures by the da Ponte family (16th and early 17th century), surnamed Bassano from their birth-place; Jacopo is the most eminent of them . The museum also contains drawings and letters of the sculptor Antonio Canova . The church of S . Francesco, begun in the 12th century in the Lombard Romanesque style, was continued in the 13th in the Gothic style . Some of the houses have traces of paintings on their facades .

In the 1th century Eccelin, a

German, obtained fiefs in this district from Conrad II. and founded the family of the Ezzelini, who were prominent in the history of North Italy in the 13th and 14th centuries . Bassano apparently came into existence about A.D . 1000 .. Its possession was disputed between Padua and Vicenza; it passed for a moment under the power of Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, who fortified it . At the beginning of . the 15th century it went over to Venice; its industries flourished under Venetian government, especially its printing-press and manufacture of majolica, the latter of which still continues . On the 8th of September 1796 an action was fought here between the French and the Austrians, in which the French were victorious . (T .