[128] The assent of Carlo Celano (Giornata IV.) seems to authenticate this tradition. [129] Luca, fa Presto! [130] He used to tell, that then he had drawn twelve times the Stanze and the Loggia of Rafaello, and nearly twenty the Battle of Constantine, without mentioning his copies from the Sistina, Polidoro, A. Caracci, &c.; hence, some one has called him by a bold but pertinent allusion "The Thunderbolt of Art," as others its Proteus, from the singular talent of mimicking the manner and touch of every master. Many are the pictures painted by him, which passed for works of Albert Durer, Bassano, Tiziano, and Rubens, not only with connoisseurs, a task less difficult, but with his rivals, whose eyes malignity as well as discernment might have sharpened: these deceptions fetched at sales doubly and trebly the price of an ordinary Giordano. Specimens are still to be found in the churches of Naples; for instance, the two altar-pieces in that of S. Teresa, which have all the air of Guido, especially that which represents the Nativity of the Saviour. [131] Born 1657; died 1748. [132] Il Calabrese ringentilito. [133] Mengs. THE SCHOOL OF VENICE. The conquests, commerce and possessions of Venice in the Levant, and thence its uninterrupted intercourse with the Greeks, give probability to the conjecture, that Venetian art drew its origin from the same source, and that the first institution of a company, or, as it is there called, a School (Schola) of Painters, may be dated up to the Greek artists who took refuge at Venice from the fury of the Iconoclasts at Constantinople. The choice of its Patron, which was not St. Luke, but Sta. Sophia, the patroness of the first temple at that time, and prototype of St. Mark's, distinguishes it from the rest of the Italian Schools. _Anchona_, the vulgar name of a picture in the technic language, the statutes,[134] and documents of those times, is evidently a depravation of the Greek _Eikon_. The school itself is of considerable antiquity; its archives contain regulations and laws made in 1290, which refer to anterior ones; and though not yet separated from the mass of artisans, its members began to enjoy privileges of their own.