page_title: Jusepe de Ribera
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Jusepe de Ribera / Early life
context_page_description: Jusepe de Ribera was a Spanish ValencianTenebrist painter and printmaker, also known as José de Ribera and Josep de Ribera. He also was called Lo Spagnoletto by his contemporaries and early writers. Ribera was a leading painter of the Spanish school, although his mature work was all done in Italy.
context_section_description: Ribera was born at Xàtiva, near Valencia, Spain, the second son of Simón Ribera and his first wife Margarita Cucó. He was baptized on 17 February, 1591. His father was a shoemaker or cobbler, perhaps on a large scale. His parents intended him for a literary or learned career, but he neglected these studies and is said to have apprenticed with the Spanish painter Francisco Ribalta in Valencia, although no proof of this connection exists. Longing to study art in Italy, he made his way to Rome via Parma, where he painted Saint Martin and the Beggar, now lost, for the church of San Prospero in 1611. According to one source, a cardinal noticed him drawing from the frescoes on a Roman palace facade, and housed him. Roman artists gave him the nickname "Lo Spagnoletto".
  His early biographers generally rank him among the followers of Caravaggio. Very little documentation survives from his early years, with scholars speculating as to the precise time and route by which he came to Italy. Ribera started living in Rome no later than 1612, and is documented as having joined the Academy of Saint Luke by 1613. He lived for a time in the Via Margutta, and almost certainly associated with other Caravaggisti who flocked to Rome at that time, such as Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, among other Utrecht painters active in Rome by 1615. In 1616, Ribera moved to Naples, in order to avoid his creditors (according to Giulio Mancini, who described him as living beyond his means despite a high income). In November, 1616, Ribera married Caterina Azzolino, the daughter of a Sicilian-born Neapolitan painter, Giovanni Bernardino Azzolino, whose connections in the Neapolitan art world helped to establish Ribera early on as a major figure, whose presence was to bear a lasting impact on the art of the city.
caption: The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, 1628
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