Francesco Maria Nocchieri

Francesco Maria Nocchieri, born in Ancona, [The engraving of Nocchieri's "Apollo" with the antique Roman muses in Paolo Alessandro Maffei's Raccolta di statue antiche e moderne... dato in luce da Domenico de Rossi, Rome, 1704 (pls. CXI-CXX) is titled "Opera di Francesco Maria Nocchieri Anconitano".] was a seventeenth-century Italian sculptor of minor reputation active in Rome, where he spent time in the large studio of Bernini. He worked largely as a restorer of antiquities. He was among the many Roman sculptors patronised by Christina, Queen of Sweden in her retirement in Rome; [Lilian H. Zirpolo, "Christina of Sweden's Patronage of Bernini: The Mirror of Truth Revealed by Time" "Woman's Art Journal" 26.1 (Spring - Summer 2005:38-43)] for Christina he executed an "Apollo" (1680) to complement a set of Roman sculptures of Muses that had been found at Hadrian's Villa, which were doubtless restored by Nocchieri; [The Muses are at the Prado; they were identified as the group known to have come from Hadrian's Villa by Paul-Gustave Hübner "Le groupe des muses de la Villa d'Hadrien", "Revue archéologique" (Société française d'archéologie classique) :359-] the "Apollo" is now at La Granja de San Ildefonso. [ [http://www.museodelprado.es/es/submenu/enciclopedia/buscador/voz/coleccion-de-esculturas-de-cristina-de-suecia/ Museo Nacional del Prado:Colección de esculturas de Cristina de Suecia] ] The largest collection of Nocchieri's sculptures today are in the Gardens of Aranjuez, Madrid.A terracotta "bozzetto" at the Ashmolean Museum represents "Apollo holding his lyre, attentive to the Muses". [acc. no.WA.OA291. Nicholas Penny, "Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum: 1540 to the Present Day", 3 vols., Oxford 1992:68; [http://www.culturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk/search_spoliations/index.html?sectionDetail=10&iID=ashmolean Cultural Property, purchased ca. 1950] ]

ome other sculptors in Rome renowned for their restorations

*Orfeo Boselli
*Ippolito Buzzi
*Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
*Ercole Ferrata
*Francesco Fontana
*Giovanni Battista Piranesi
*Vincenzo Pacetti

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