His son Orazio practised the art only for a few years. His best praise is, that during that short period he made approaches towards the style and merit of his father. There is one of his pieces at San Stefano, representing the Faithful receiving the Holy Spirit from the Apostles;[68] and, if we except only Paul Veronese, it makes a distinguished figure, placed near some of the best artists of Verona. Resuming here the thread of our former discourse, we must observe that Paul Caliari found the public prepossessed in favour of the three foregoing artists, and obtained little consideration in his own district while young. The world, ever disinclined to admit the claims of rising reputation, either knew not, or believed not, that in his competition with the Mantuan artists he had surpassed them all; insomuch that this youthful genius was compelled by penury to quit Verona, leaving behind him, upon an altar at San Fermo, a Madonna between two Saints, with a few other proofs of his early powers. He first went to Vicenza, and thence passed on to Venice. His genius was naturally noble, and even magnificent and vast, as well as pleasing; and no provincial city was capable of supplying him with ideas proportionate to his genius, like Venice. There he aimed at improving his style of colouring, upon the models of Titian and Tintoretto, as well as to surpass them, as it would appear, in elegance and variety of ornament. Hence his pupils were accustomed to say, that at that time he devoted himself to the study of casts taken from ancient statues, to the engravings of Parmigiano, and to those of Albert Durer. The first works that he produced for the sacristy of S. Sebastiano in Venice, present us only with the elements of that style he subsequently acquired, in the air of the heads, and in the variety of drapery and of attitudes. For the rest his pencil was still timid, inclined rather to unite his tints with care, than to a bold and free manner of handling. But it was not long before he displayed more freedom, and more attraction, in painting the ceilings of the same church, where he represented the history of Esther, a work whose novelty conciliated public admiration and became a stepping stone to very honourable commissions from the senate.