BASSANO, town of Venetia, Italy, province of Vicenza, 24m. N.E. of Vicenza and 3om. N. of Padua, at the foot of the Vene tian Alps. Pop. (1931) town, 11, 233 ; commune, 20,527. The Brenta is here spanned by a covered wooden bridge, and com mands fine views. The i3th century castle of the Ezzelini (of Ger man origin) stands above the river with a tower, erected by one of the family. The museum and cathedral and some churches con tain pictures by the da Ponte family (i6th and early I 7th centuries) surnamed Bassano from their birthplace; Jacopo is the most eminent of them. The museum also contains drawings and letters of the sculptor Antonio Canova. The church of S. Francesco shows remains of I2th century Lombard Romanesque and 13th century Gothic architecture. Some houses have traces of paintings on the facades. Bassano is first mentioned as a village in a docu ment of 1085, and as a "castello" (fortified place) in 1175. At the beginning of the 15th century, it went over to Venice and its printing-press and manufacture of majolica flourished; the latter still continues.
See G. Gerola, Bassano (Arti Grafiche, Bergamo, i g io) --well illustrated.
The town was the scene of a battle won by the French Army of Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte against the Austrians under Marshal Wurmser on Sept. 8, 1796. At the end of August Bona parte decided to attack the Austrians, who after their defeat at Castiglione (q.v.) had withdrawn into Tirol, and were preparing for a new offensive to relieve Mantua. Collecting 30,00o men, he defeated their right wing, occupied Trent, and turning eastwards into the upper Brenta valley, came down on to the rear of Wurm ser just as the latter was concentrating his centre at Bassano and pushing forward his left towards the middle Adige. The scat tered Austrian detachments were defeated in a series of combats, and on Sept. 8 the French, advancing down the valley with Mas sena on the left bank of the Brenta and Augereau on the right bank, in all 15,000 men, found the main enemy army, I1,000 strong, massed north of the town of Bassano, covered by ad vanced troops on either bank. These forward troops were rapidly driven in, and Massena, pressing forward on their trail, seized the Brenta bridge and broke into the town, menacing the left and rear of the Austrian main position, which was being simultaneously attacked in front by Augereau. Wurmser was driven back in dis order to the south, losing 3,00o prisoners and 35 guns, and, his line of retreat to Trieste cut, had no other recourse but to recross the lower Brenta and throw himself, with the remnant of his army, into Mantua. Here he was at once attacked and shut in, only a few thousand men, who had succeeded in escaping east ward from the battlefield, remaining in the open field. The addi tion of Wurmser's forces to the garrison of Mantua merely in creased the drain on the limited supplies in the fortress, and the Austrians were compelled to collect a new army for its relief. (See further FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS.)