. Plain-towns of Italy : the cities of old Venetia. ing over the whole ofEurope. There can be no doubt also that with suchsignificant works going on about him, the young Man-tegna drew from them further inspiration and know-ledge. All fitted him for his coming triumph, when,employed with other assistants by Squarcione, some-time between 1453 and 1459, to decorate for theOvetari family their chapel in the Church of theEremetani, his six frescoes on the lives of SaintsJames and Christopher raised him at one bound tothe supremacy of his day. Like the Brancacci chapelat Florence, which after 1428
. Plain-towns of Italy : the cities of old Venetia. ing over the whole ofEurope. There can be no doubt also that with suchsignificant works going on about him, the young Man-tegna drew from them further inspiration and know-ledge. All fitted him for his coming triumph, when,employed with other assistants by Squarcione, some-time between 1453 and 1459, to decorate for theOvetari family their chapel in the Church of theEremetani, his six frescoes on the lives of SaintsJames and Christopher raised him at one bound tothe supremacy of his day. Like the Brancacci chapelat Florence, which after 1428 became the resort ofartists anxious to study the attainment of realism byMasaccio, so after 1458 did this chapel of the Ere-metani become the teacher of succeeding generations. It was with a deep longing to behold once morethese exceptional relics of the Renaissance, that Ilooked eagerly forward as the electric train broughtus closer to Paduas medieval walls. We had leftthe Brenta, turning southwestward, and were ap- * Lord Lindsay, Christian STRA. THE GRAND HALL, ROYAL VILLA. THE BRENTA 25 preaching the city at its northeastern corner. Therich plain in which Padua lies, now spread around usin its luxuriance of gardens, shrubbery; and massivetrees, is backed immediately on the west by theEuganean Hills, — that outpost of the Alps whichstretches so far to the south as to rise like a group ofsolitary islands from the sea. On the east lies theLagoon, on the north the Brenta, on the south, at afurther distance, the Po. Through this plain flowsthe Bacchiglione, from the Alps, along the northernside of the Euganean Hills, then southeastward intothe Lagoon; and this is the stream which of old wasthe life of Padua, filtering through it and around itin a network of spreading canals, that mark the suc-cessive extensions of the citys moats. A glance at the map of the town reveals this factquite clearly. In the centre one sees a small quadri-lateral, marked out by the two arms into
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectcitiesandtowns, booky
