About this time, the painter Bellange, who had been a pupil of Claude Henriet, returned from Italy, and gave young Callot an exciting account of the wonders of art to be seen in that country; and soon afterwards Claude Henriet dying, his son Israel went to Rome, and his letters from thence had no less effect on the mind of the young artist at Nancy, than the conversation of Bellange. Indeed the passion of the boy for art was so strong, that, finding his parents obstinately opposed to all his longings in this direction, he left his father's house secretly, and, in the spring of 1604, when he had only just entered his thirteenth year, he set out for Italy on foot, without introductions and almost without money. He was even unacquainted with the road, but after proceeding a short distance, he fell in with a band of gipsies, and, as they were going to Florence, he joined their company. His life among the gipsies, which lasted seven or eight weeks, appears to have furnished food to his love of burlesque and caricature, and he has handed down to us his impressions, in a series of four engravings of scenes in gipsy life, admirably executed at a rather later period of his life, which are full of comic humour. When they arrived at Florence, Jacques Callot parted company with the gipsies, and was fortunate enough to meet with an officer of the grand duke's household, who listened to his story, and took so much interest in him, that he obtained him admission to the studio of Remigio Canta Gallina. This artist gave him instructions in drawing and engraving, and sought to correct him of his taste for the grotesque by keeping him employed upon serious subjects.