Gesù Nuovo, in the time of Francesco di Maria, who was one of the masters, and taught in it anatomy and design. This institution continued for some years. King Charles in some measure revived this establishment by a school for painting, which he opened in the Laboratory of mosaics and tapestry. Six masters of the School of Solimene were placed there as directors, and some good models being provided in the place, young artists were permitted to attend and study there. Bonito was engaged as the acting professor, and after some time Mura was associated with him, but died before the professor. Ferdinand IV. treading in the steps of his august father, has, by repeated instances of protection to these honorable pursuits, conferred fresh honours on the Bourbon name, and rendered it dearer than ever to the fine arts. He transferred the academy to the new royal Museum, and supplied it with all requisites for the instruction of young artists. On the death of Bonito he bestowed the direction of it on the first masters, and having established pensions for the maintenance in Rome of a certain number of young men, students in the three sister arts, he assigned four of these to those students who were intended for painters; thus confirming by his suffrage to the city of Rome, that proud appellation which the world at large had long conceded to her, the Athens of Modern Art. [Footnote 121: Cortona had in Sicily a good scholar in Gio. Quagliata, who, in the _Memorie Messinesi_, is said to have been favored and distinguished by his master; and to have afterwards returned to his native country to paint in competition with Rodriguez, and what surprises me still more, with Barbalunga. If we may be allowed to judge of these two artists by their works which remain in Rome, Barbalunga in S. Silvestro at Monte Cavallo, appears a great master; Quagliata at the Madonna di C. P. a respectable scholar. The former is celebrated and known to every painter in Rome, the latter has not an admirer. In Messina he perhaps painted better. His biographer commends him as a graceful and sober painter, as long as his rivals lived; and adds, that after their death he devoted himself to frescos, when the exuberance of his imagination is evident in the strong expression of character, and in the superfluity of architectural and other ornaments. Andrea, his brother, was not in Rome; he is, however, in Messina, considered a good artist.] [Footnote 122: Giordano is said at this period to have copied the Chambers and the Gallery of Raffaello no less than twelve times, and perhaps twenty times the Battle of Constantine, painted by Giulio Romano, without reckoning his designs after the works of Michelangiolo, Polidoro, and other great masters. See _Vite del Bellori_, edited in Rome in 1728, with the addition of the life of Giordano, page 307.]