ngs which
came about in Italy with the gradual submission of the country to the
rule of the neighbouring cities and with the general advance of
civilisation. During the Renaissance the love of the country and its
pleasures received an immense impulse from Latin authors. What the great
Romans without exception recommended, an Italian was not slow to adopt,
particularly when, as in this case, it harmonised with natural
inclination and with an already common practice. It was the usual thing
with those who could afford to do so to retire to the villa for a large
part of the year. Classic poets helped such Italians to appreciate the
simplicity of the country and to feel a little of its beauty. Many took
such delight in country life that they wished to have reminders of it
in town. It may have been in response to some such half formulated wish
that Palma began to paint his "Sante Conversazioni,"--groups of saintly
personages gathered under pleasant trees in pretty landscapes. His
pupil, Bonifazio, continued the same line, gradually, however,
discarding the traditional group of Madonna and saints, and, under such
titles as "The Rich Man's Feast" or "The Finding of Moses," painting all
the scenes of fashionable country life, music on the terrace of a villa,
hunting parties, and picnics in the forest.

Bonifazio's pupil, Jacopo Bassano, no less fond of painting country
scenes, did not however confine himself to representing city people in
their parks. His pictures were for the inhabitants of the small
market-town from which he takes his name, where inside the gates you
still see men and women in rustic garb crouching over their
many-coloured wares; and where, just outside the walls, you may see all
the ordinary occupations connected with farming and grazing. Inspired,
although unawares, by the new idea of giving perfectly modern versions
of biblical stories, Bassano introduced into nearly every picture he
painted episodes from the life in the streets of Bassano, and in the
county just outside the gates. Even Orpheus in his hands becomes a
farmer's lad fiddling to the barnyard fowls.

Bassano's pictures and those of his two sons, who followed him very
closely, found great favour in Venice and elsewhere, because they were
such unconscious renderings of simple country life, a kind of life whose
charm seemed greater and greater the more fashionable and ceremonious
private life in the city became. But this was far from being their o