José de, called by the Italians Il Spagnoletto ("the Little Spaniard"), was born at Xativa, in the kingdom of Valencia, in 1588. His parents were poor; but no poverty could prevent him from studying art. While he was still very young he managed to place himself in the school of Francisco Ribalta. Not long afterwards he was found in the streets of Rome, a ragged boy, copying the frescoes on the outside of the public buildings. A benevolent cardinal took him into his house, but the wayward "little Spaniard" soon returned to his vagrant habits of study. He begged his way to Parma and Modena to examine the masterpieces of Coreggio. On his return to Rome he pawned his cloak, and with the money set out to try his fortune in Naples. Ribera had not long settled in Naples before he began to achieve great success. Assuming the severely truthful manner of Caravaggio, he employed his brush on sacred subjects with striking effect. His stern prophets and apostles, with their gaunt and shrivelled faces, and his tortured martyrs, with their agonized features and mutilated limbs, soon rivetted the public attention, and procured him many patrons. An admiring picture-dealer gave him the hand of his lovely and well-dowered daughter. The viceroy Don Pedro Giron made him the court painter, with a handsome salary. There was scarcely one of his sackcloth-girt St Jeromes and his arrow-pierced St Sebastians which did not find a ready purchaser among the churchmen. He rapidly rose towards the highest rank of Neapolitan artists. Nor did he hesitate to use villainous stratagems to accelerate his promotion. Forming a conspiracy with two other unprincipled painters, he employed every malicious art to force his rivals off the field. D'Arpino, Guido, Gessi, and Domenichino were all in turn driven from the city, and not until his accomplices had died did he cease to cheat and bully for pre-eminence. The inquisitive life of Ribera is said to have come to a dismal close. In the midst of the hey-day of his opulence and fame his daughter was seduced by Don Juan of Austria. The proud painter, broken down with shame, hid his head in privacy. At length one day he disappeared from his house, and was never heard of more. Ribera's pictures are in great repute, especially among the Spaniards and Italians. In Italy his best works are to be found at Naples, and include "St Jerome startled by the Last Trump," "Silenus and the Satyrs," "The Deposition from the Cross," "The Twelve Apostles," "Moses and Elias," and "The Last Supper." In Spain he is chiefly known by the following pictures in the museum at Madrid:—"The Martyrdom of St Bartholomew," "Jacob's Ladder," "Prometheus," "Martyrdom of St Sebastian," "Ixion on the Wheel," and a "Dead Christ lamented." (See Stirling's Artists of Spain, and Lanzi's History of Painting.)