This painting, also known as the Embarkation of the Doge in the Riva degli Schiavoni, is dated after 1595, the year Leandro was ennobled, since the signature denotes his knightly status. In the 17th century, two works with similar characteristics depicting this theme arrived in Spain and are today housed at the Museo Nacional del Prado and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (n. 546). The first known Spanish owner of both was the Duke of Lerma, and, given their similarity, the size is the only reliable criterion for distinguishing one from the other in early documents. The painting in the Real Academia de San Fernando, the smaller of the two (209 x 362 cm), was identified by Perez Sánchez with the one mentioned in the 1607 inventory as hanging in the Tercer aposento of the Quinta Real de La Ribera in Valladolid: Y más una pintura de la plaça de Beneçia, de tres baras y media de largo y dos de alto, guarnecido, original de Leandro Baçan, and with the Betrothal of the Doge and the Sea that belonged to the Godoy collection, from where it would have found its way into the Real Academia. The Prado painting is probably the [...] pintura grande de diez pies de alto y veintitres de ancho [...] de las fiestas que se hacen en Venecia el día de San Marcos a la elección del dux which was in Lerma´s possession in 1611 and subsequently incorporated, along with The Virgin in Heaven (P43) and other works of the same provenance, into the royal collection in the middle of the 17th century: in 1666 it is recorded as hanging in the Pieça inmediata que es donde come su magestad of the Alcázar in Madrid. After the building was destroyed by fire in 1734, it must have been moved to the Palacio del Buen Retiro, as the 1794 inventory refers to Una vista de la Señoría de Venecia de dos varas y tercia de alto y siete varas de largo. The two paintings are of similar quality and their differences lie in the smaller size of the one in the Real Academia, which obliged the painter to condense the composition and omit some elements. This could support the idea that the Prado painting is the earlier of the two. City views, both topographical and those depicting events, were particularly appreciated by 17th century Spanish collectors. When the collection of Cardinal Bernardo Sandoval y Rojas, archbishop of Toledo and uncle of the Duke of Lerma, was appraised in 1618, the most highly valued painting was precisely a [...] grande en que está pintada Venecia (Text drawn from Falomir, M.: Los Bassano en la España del Siglo de Oro, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2001, p. 250).