At the age of five years, the natural taste of Lucia Giordano for painting, led him to adopt the pencil as a plaything; at six he could draw the human figure with surprising correctness. The Cav. Stanzioni, passing by his father's shop, and seeing the child at work, stopped to see his performances, and is said to have predicted that "he would one day become the first painter of the age." Before he was eight years old he painted, unknown to his father, two cherubs in a fresco, entrusted to that artist, in an obscure part of the church of S. Maria Nuova—figures so graceful as to attract considerable attention. This fact coming to the knowledge of the Duke de Medina de las Torres, the Viceroy of Naples, he rewarded the precocious painter with some gold ducats, and recommended him to the instruction of Spagnoletto, then the most celebrated painter in Naples, who accordingly received him into his studio. There, says Palomino, he spent nine years in close application to study, and there, he probably enjoyed the advantage of seeing Velasquez, during that great artist's second visit to Naples.