At the age of five years, the natural taste of Lucia Giordano for
painting, led him to adopt the pencil as a plaything; at six he could
draw the human figure with surprising correctness. The Cav. Stanzioni,
passing by his father's shop, and seeing the child at work, stopped to
see his performances, and is said to have predicted that "he would one
day become the first painter of the age." Before he was eight years old
he painted, unknown to his father, two cherubs in a fresco, entrusted to
that artist, in an obscure part of the church of S. Maria
Nuova--figures so graceful as to attract considerable attention. This
fact coming to the knowledge of the Duke de Medina de las Torres, the
Viceroy of Naples, he rewarded the precocious painter with some gold
ducats, and recommended him to the instruction of Spagnoletto, then the
most celebrated painter in Naples, who accordingly received him into his
studio. 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.