s made across the
Brenner Pass, few people ever see the little town which lies cradled on
the spurs of the Italian Alps, where the gorge of Valsugana opens. It is
surrounded by chestnut woods, which sweep up to the blue mountains, the
wide Brenta flows through the town, and the houses cluster high on
either side, and have gardens and balconies overhanging the water. The
facades of many of the houses are covered with fading frescoes, relics
of da Ponte's school of fresco-painters, which, though they are fast
perishing, still give a wonderful effect of warmth and colour.

Jacopo da Ponte was the son and pupil of his father, Francesco, who
in his day had been a pupil of the Vicentine, Bartolommeo Montagna.
Francesco da Ponte's best work is to be found at Bassano, in the
cathedral and the church of San Giovanni, and has many of the
characteristics, such as the raised pedestal and vaulted cupola, which
we have noticed that Montagna owed to the Vivarini. Francesco's son
went when very young to Venice, and was there thrown at once among the
artists of the lagoons, and attached himself in particular to Bonifazio.
In Jacopo's earliest work, now in the Museum at Bassano, a "Flight into
Egypt," Bonifazio's tuition is markedly discernible in the build of the
figures and, above all, in the form of the heads. A comparison of the
very peculiarly shaped head of the Virgin in this picture with that of
the Venetian lady in Bonifazio's "Rich Man's Feast," in the Venetian
Academy, leaves us in no doubt on this score. Jacopo's "Adulteress
before Christ" and the "Three in the Fiery Furnace" have Bonifazio's
manner in the architecture and the staging of the figures. Only five
examples are known of this early work of da Ponte, and it is all in
Bonifazio's lighter style, not unlike his "Holy Family" in the National
Gallery.

The house in which the painter lived when he returned to his native
town, still stands in the little Piazza Monte Vecchio, and its whole
facade retains the frescoes, mouldy and decaying, with which he
decorated it. The design is in four horizontal bands. First comes a
frieze of children in every attitude of fun and frolic. Then follows a
long range of animals--horses, oxen, and deer. Musical instruments and
flowers make a border, with allegorical representations of the arts and
crafts filling the spaces between the windows. The principal band is
decorated with Scriptural subjects, most of which are now hardly
discernible,