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(1) Francesco Bassano il vecchio
(b Bassano del Grappa, c. 1475; d Bassano del Grappa, 1539). He was the son of a tanner, and he may have been a pupil of Bartolomeo Montagna. In 1504 Francesco married Lucia Pizzardini and in 1523 a certain Francesca; he had seven children. An early work by Francesco is the altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with SS John the Baptist and Bartholomew (Bassano del Grappa, Mus. Civ.), in which the dry compositional scheme and agitated forms reveal the influence of Montagna. In his altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with SS Peter and Paul (1519; Bassano del Grappa, Mus. Civ.) the perspective and decoration are still in the style of the 15th century; it was clearly painted by an eclectic, backward-looking artist influenced by various painters of the Venetian mainland, including Montagna and Liberale da Verona. Also from c. 1519 is Francesco’s altarpiece for the parish church of Foza (Vicenza), the Virgin and Child Enthroned with SS John and Benedict, which is hieratic and rather cold, enlivened only by the naturalism of such passages as the two little angels, one with a bird and the other with a black squirrel. For the parish church of Solagna (Vicenza), his altarpiece with St Justina with SS Michael and George, signed and dated 1520 (in situ), is a harmonious and balanced work with clear echoes of the style of Montagna.
Part of the Bassano family
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