At the outset Jacopo aspired to a grandeur of style, which is apparent from some of his pictures remaining in the façade of the Casa Michieli. Among these, a Samson slaying the Philistines meets with much praise, and indeed they all partake of the boldness of Michel Angiolo. But, whether the result of disposition or of judgment, he afterwards confined himself to smaller proportions, and to subjects of less power. Even the figures in his altarpieces are generally less than life, and so little animated, that it was observed by some one, that in Tintoretto even his old men were spirited, but that the youths of Bassano were mere dotards. We do not meet with any of that noble architecture in his paintings, that adds so much dignity to those of the Venetian School. He appears rather anxious to find subjects in which to introduce candlelight, cottages, landscape, animals, copper vessels, and all such objects as passed under his eye, and which he copied with surprising accuracy. His ideas were limited, and he often repeated them, a fault to be attributed to his situation, it being an indisputable fact, that the conceptions both of artists and of writers become enlarged and increased in great capitals, and diminish in small places. All this may be gathered from his pictures produced for private ornament, the most familiar occupation of his life, inasmuch as he executed very few large altarpieces. He conducted them at leisure in his studio, and, assisted by his school, he prepared a great number of various dimensions. He then despatched them to Venice, and sometimes to the best frequented fairs, thus rendering the number so very great, as to make it rather a disgrace for a collection not to possess copies by his hand, than an honour to have them. In these may be viewed, almost invariably, the same subjects; consisting of acts of the Old and New Testament; the Feasts of Martha, of the Pharisee, of the Glutton, with a splendid display of brazen vessels; the Ark of Noah, the Return of Jacob, the Annunciation of the Angel to the Shepherds, with great variety of animals. To these we may add, the Queen of Sheba; the three Magi, with regal pomp of dress, and the richest array; the Deposition of our Lord from the Cross, by torchlight. His pieces upon profane subjects exhibit the sale of beasts and of brazen vessels; sometimes rural occupations, corresponding to the seasons of the year; and sometimes without human figures, merely a kitchen, furniture, a fowl yard, or similar objects. Nor is it only the histories or the compositions themselves that recur in every collection to the eye; but even countenances taken from individuals of his own family; for instance, arraying his own daughter either as a Queen of Sheba, or a Magdalen; or as a villager, presenting fowls to the infant Jesus. I have likewise seen entire pieces, with the title of the _Family of Bassano_, sometimes in small size, and sometimes in larger. Of the