Jose de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, in the year 1746, in Fuendetodos, a small village in northern Spain. At the age of fourteen he became an apprentice for a local artist, Jose Luzan. Later he traveled to Madrid where he took interest in the last of the great Venetian painters. After attempting and failing to enroll in the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Goya then traveled to Rome, Italy. Then on to Sagossa in 1771 where he painted fresco in several local churches, establishing a reputation. In 1773 Goya married a women named Josefa Bayeu, together they had many children, unfortunately only one by the name of Xavier made it to become an adult.