Two additions may have been made for the painting's patron, Pietro Pizzamano, governor of the town of Bassano del Grappa—the view of the town and Monte Grappa just behind it, which, in reality, were not situated together.

Jacopo finished the painting in 1545. Like most provincial governors, Pizzamano was a Venetian aristocrat. When he finished his term in Bassano, he took this painting with him to hang in his family's palazzo in Venice. Many of the city's artists, including its most famous, Titian, came to see this work by a painter of whom they knew little.