In 1660, Murillo founded an academy of art in Seville, of which he was president for two years. The students were required to abstain from swearing and ill behavior, and to give assent to the following: "Praised be the most Holy Sacrament and the pure conception of our Lady." Murillo was a most gentle and encouraging teacher. His colored slave, Sebastian Gomez, who had listened to the teaching which he gave to others, finished the head of the Virgin which his master had left on the easel. Murillo exclaimed on seeing it, "I am indeed fortunate, Sebastian; for I have created not only pictures, but a painter!" Many of the works of Gomez, whom Murillo made free, are still preserved and prized in Seville. During the next ten years, Murillo did much work for the cathedral clergy; eight oval, half-length pictures of saints, Justa, Rufina, Hermengild, Sidon, Leander, Archbishops Laureano and Pius, and King Ferdinand; the "Repose in Egypt;" the infants Christ and John for the Antigua Chapel, and other works. Saints Justa and Rufina were daughters of a potter, whom they assisted. Some women who worshipped Venus came to the shop to buy vessels for idolatrous sacrifice. The sisters declared that they had nothing to sell for such purposes, as all things should be used in the service of God. The Pagan women were so incensed that they broke all the earthenware in the place. The sisters then broke the image of Venus, and flung it into a kennel. For this act the populace seized them, and took them before the Prefect. Justa expired on the rack, and Rufina was strangled. These two saints have always guarded the beautiful tower Giralda. They are said to have preserved it from destruction in 1504, in a terrific thunder-storm. When Espartero bombarded Seville in 1843, the people believed that Giralda was encompassed by angels led by these sisters, who turned aside the bombs. Murillo was now fifty-two years old, in the prime of life, famous and honored. He was named by his admiring contemporaries "a better Titian," and it was asserted that even Apelles would have been proud to be called "the Grecian Murillo." He lived in a large and handsome house, still carefully preserved, near the Church of Santa Cruz, not far from the Moorish wall of the city. "The courtyard contains a marble fountain, amidst flowering shrubs, and is surrounded on three sides by an arcade upheld by marble pillars. At the rear is a pretty garden, shaded by cypress and citron trees, and terminated by a wall whereon are the remains of ancient frescos which have been attributed to the master himself. The studio is on the upper floor, and overlooks the Moorish battlements, commanding a beautiful view to the eastward, over orange-groves and rich corn-lands, out to the gray highlands about Alcalá."