 But at the top end of the market Cretan icons were now the finest in the Byzantine world.About 120 artists can be documented working in Candia (the Venetian name of Chandax, present day Herakleion), in the period 1453–1526, and they had organized a "Schuola di San Luca" painter's guild, based on the Italian model.The blending of the Eastern and the Western traditions, and a relaxed interchange between Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic rites led to the "Cretan Renaissance", a golden period for the arts on the island, where both literature and painting flourished.