 During the years 1773 to 1778, he received a fellowship to study in Italy, going by way of Paris and Avignon and then to Genoa and Bologna, where he was enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna under Gaetano Gandolfi.He found the teaching there unsatisfactory, however and, after numerous unanswered petitions to the Academy, moved to Rome without permission.He arrived there only to discover that their "Academy" was really an association of artists with private students.