Flaminio Vacca or
Vacchi (Caravaggio ot
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, 1538 –
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, 1605) was an Italian sculptor. His sculptural work can be seen in Rome in the grandiose funeral chapel of
Pope Pius VPope St. Pius V , born Antonio Ghislieri , was pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church...
designed by
Domenico Fontana240px|thumb|Fountain of Moses in Rome.Domenico Fontana was a Swiss-born Italian architect of the late Renaissance.He was born at Melide on the Lake Lugano and died at Naples. He went to Rome before the death of Michelangelo...
at the
Basilica di Santa Maria MaggioreThe Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major , is an ancient Roman Catholic Marian basilica of Rome. It is one of the four major or four papal basilicas, which, together with St. Lawrence outside the Walls, were formerly referred to as the five "patriarchal basilicas" of Rome , associated with the five...
(
Saint Francis), in the
Church of the GesùThe Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. Officially named , its facade is "the first truly baroque façade". The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the...
(one of four marble angels in the third chapel on the right) and in the right transept of the
Chiesa NuovaChiesa Nuova may refer to:*Santa Maria in Vallicella, a church in Rome, Italy*Chiesa Nuova , a church in Assisi, Italy*Chiesa Nuova , a Franciscan performing arts ministry based in Chicago, Illinois...
(
Saint John the Evangelist and
Saint John the Baptist, both signed).
Flaminio Vacca or
Vacchi (Caravaggio ot
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, 1538 –
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, 1605) was an Italian sculptor. His sculptural work can be seen in Rome in the grandiose funeral chapel of
Pope Pius VPope St. Pius V , born Antonio Ghislieri , was pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church...
designed by
Domenico Fontana240px|thumb|Fountain of Moses in Rome.Domenico Fontana was a Swiss-born Italian architect of the late Renaissance.He was born at Melide on the Lake Lugano and died at Naples. He went to Rome before the death of Michelangelo...
at the
Basilica di Santa Maria MaggioreThe Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major , is an ancient Roman Catholic Marian basilica of Rome. It is one of the four major or four papal basilicas, which, together with St. Lawrence outside the Walls, were formerly referred to as the five "patriarchal basilicas" of Rome , associated with the five...
(
Saint Francis), in the
Church of the GesùThe Church of the Gesù is the mother church of the Society of Jesus, a Roman Catholic religious order also known as the Jesuits. Officially named , its facade is "the first truly baroque façade". The church served as model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the...
(one of four marble angels in the third chapel on the right) and in the right transept of the
Chiesa NuovaChiesa Nuova may refer to:*Santa Maria in Vallicella, a church in Rome, Italy*Chiesa Nuova , a church in Assisi, Italy*Chiesa Nuova , a Franciscan performing arts ministry based in Chicago, Illinois...
(
Saint John the Evangelist and
Saint John the Baptist, both signed). At the notoriously awkward fountain that marked the terminus of the
Acqua FeliceThe Acqua Felice is one of the aqueducts of Rome, completed in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V, whose birth name, which he never fully abandoned, was Felice Peretti. The first new aqueduct of Early Modern Rome, its source is at the springs at Pantano Borghese, off Via Casilina...
, Vacca contributed one of the angels (documented 1588-89,) supporting
Sixtus VPope Sixtus V , born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590.-Biography:Felice Peretti was born at Grottammare, in the Papal States, son of Piergentile di Giacomo, nicknamed "Peretto", and Marianna da Frontillo. He took the surname "Peretti" in 1551 and was more generally known as...
's coat-of-arms that crown the attic, and a bas-relief
Joshua Leading His People across the Jordan River; in these commissions for the fountain his partner in the documented payments was Pietro Paolo Olivieri.His self-portrait (1599) is conserved in the
Protomoteca Capitolina on the Campidoglio. At the
Villa MediciThe Villa Medici is an architectural complex centred on the villa whose gardens are contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, has housed the French Academy in Rome...
two marble lions flank the staircase; one is Roman, its pendant, made to march it in 1600, was by Flaminio Vacca. Vacca's copy was replaced by a copy when Villa Medici was sold by the Grand Duke of Tuscany and moved the lion to
Piazza della SignoriaPiazza della Signoria is an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio....
, Florence, where with its ancient companion it flanks the steps to the
Loggia dei LanziThe Loggia dei Lanzi, also called the Loggia della Signoria, is a building on a corner of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, adjoining the Uffizi Gallery. It consists of wide arches open to the street, three bays wide and one bay deep. The arches rest on clustered pilasters with...
.. In
Santa SusannaThe Church of Saint Susanna at the baths of Diocletian is a Roman Catholic parish church on the Quirinal hill in Rome, with a titulus associated to its site that dates back to about 280...
, the prophets
Ezekiel and
Daniel have been attributed to him.
Outside Rome his sculpture may be found at
SpelloSpello is an ancient town and comune of Italy, in the province of Perugia in east central Umbria, on the lower southern flank of Mt. Subasio. It is 6 km NNW of Foligno and 10 km SSE of Assisi.The old walled town lies on a regularly NW-SE sloping ridge that eventually meets the plain...
(a tabernacle [1587] in the Capella del Sacramento, Church of San Lorenzo);
His
Memorie di varie antichità trovate in diversi luogia della Città di Roma (Rome 1594, republished as a supplement to Famiano Nardini's
Roma Antica [1666], reprinted by Carlo Fea, 1790) are a primary source of information and rich human detail on the discoveries of Roman sculpture and
antiquitiesAntiquities, nearly always used in the plural in this sense, is a term for objects from Antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures...
in the later sixteenth century, and also on the destruction of antiquities, especially for the urbanistic programmes of
Pope Sixtus VPope Sixtus V , born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590.-Biography:Felice Peretti was born at Grottammare, in the Papal States, son of Piergentile di Giacomo, nicknamed "Peretto", and Marianna da Frontillo. He took the surname "Peretti" in 1551 and was more generally known as...
. His pithy numbered anecdotal notes consistently begin
Mi ricordo..., "I remember...".
Vacca's reputation at the time of his death made him a suitable candidate for insepulture in the
Pantheon, RomeThe Pantheon is a building in...
; there his modest epitaph reads, in translation, "Flaminius Vacca, Roman sculptor, who in his works never satisfied himself". Vacca had been one of the founding members of the Confraterità dei Virtuosi that was formed at the Pantheon by Desiderio da Segni, a canon of the church of Santa Maria ad Martyres that occupied and preserved the Pantheon, to ensure that worship was maintained in the Chapel of St Joseph in the Holy Land, Others among the first members were
Antonio da Sangallo the youngerthumb|250px|The church of Santa Maria di Loreto near the [[Trajan's Market]] in [[Rome]], considered Sangallo's masterwork.thumb|250px|View of St. Patrick's Well in [[Orvieto]]....
, Jacopo Meneghino, Giovanni Mangone,
Taddeo ZuccariTaddeo Zuccaro or Zuccari , was an Italian painter, one of the most popular members of the Roman mannerist school.-Biography:...
and Domenico Beccafumi.
A modern account of his career is Sergio Lombardi, "Flaminio Vacca," in
Roma di Sisto V: Le arti e la cultura, Maria Luisa Madonna, ed. (Rome: De Luca, 1993)