io. There, says Palomino, he spent nine years in close application
to study, and there, he probably enjoyed the advantage of seeing
Velasquez, during that great artist's second visit to Naples.

GIORDANO'S ENTHUSIASM.

When Giordano was about seventeen years old, having learned from Ribera
all he could teach him, he conceived a strong desire to prosecute his
studies at Rome. To this step, his father, who was poor, and could
perhaps ill afford to lose his earnings, refused to give his consent.
Luca therefore embraced the earliest opportunity to abscond, and ran
away on foot to the metropolis of art, where he applied himself with the
greatest assiduity. He copied all the great frescos of Raffaelle in the
Vatican several times; he next turned his rapid pencil against the works
of Annibale Caracci in the Farnese palace. Meantime, his father divining
the direction which the truant had taken, followed him to Rome, where,
after a long search, he discovered him sketching in St. Peter's church.

LUCA FA PRESTO.

Giordano resided at Rome about three years with his father, who seems to
have been a helpless creature, subsisting by the sale of his son's
drawings; but Luca cared for nothing but his studies, satisfied with a
piece of bread or a few maccaroni. When their purse was low, the old man
would accompany him to the scene of his labors, and constantly urge him
on, by repeating _Luca, fa presto_, (hurry Luca) which became a byword
among the painters, and was fixed upon the young artist as a nickname,
singularly appropriate to his wonderful celerity of execution. He
afterwards traveled through Lombardy to Venice, still accompanied by his
father, and having studied the works of Correggio, Titian, and other
great masters, returned by way of Florence and Leghorn to Naples, where
he soon after married the Donna Margarita Ardi, a woman of exquisite
beauty, who served him as a model for his Virgins, Madonnas, Lucretias,
and Venuses.

GIORDANO'S SKILL IN COPYING.

Luca Giordano could copy any master so accurately as to deceive the best
judges. Among his patrons in his youth was one Gasparo Romero, who was
in the habit of inflicting upon him a great deal of tedious and
impertinent advice. For this he had his revenge by causing his father to
send to that connoisseur as originals, some of his imitations of
Titian, Tintoretto, and Bassano, and afterwards avowing the deception;
but he managed the joke so pleasantly that Romero wa