Bellisario Corenzio, a Greek by birth, after having passed five years in the school of Tintoretto, settled in Naples about the year 1590. He inherited from nature a fertile imagination and a rapidity of hand, which enabled him to rival his master in the prodigious number of his pictures, and those too of a large class. Four common painters could scarcely have equalled his individual labour. He cannot be compared to Tintoretto, who, when he restrained his too exuberant fancy, was inferior to few in design; and excelled in invention, gestures, and the airs of his heads, which, though the Venetians have always had before their eyes, they have never equalled. Corenzio successfully imitated his master when he painted with care, as in the great picture, in the refectory of the Benedictines, representing the multitude miraculously fed; a work he finished in forty days. But the greater part of the vault resembles in many respects the style of the Cav. d'Arpino,[111] other parts partake of the Venetian School, not without some character peculiar to himself, particularly in the glories, which are bordered with shadowy clouds. In the opinion of the Cav. Massimo, he was of a fruitful invention, but not select. He painted very little in oil, although he had great merit in the strength and harmony of his colours. The desire of gain led him to attempt large works in fresco, which he composed with much felicity, as he was copious, varied, and energetic. He had a good general effect, and was finished in detail and correct, when the proximity of some eminent rival compelled him to it. This was the case at the Certosa, in the chapel of S. Gennaro. He there exerted all his talents, as he was excited to it by emulation of Caracciolo, who had painted in that place a picture, which was long admired as one of his finest works, and was afterwards transferred into the monastery. In other churches we find some sacred subjects painted by him in smaller size, which Dominici commends, and adds too, that he assisted M. Desiderio, a celebrated perspective painter, whose views he accompanied with small figures beautifully coloured and admirably appropriate.