Flaminio Vacca

Who was Flaminio Vacca?

Flaminio Vacca or Vacchi was an Italian sculptor. His sculptural work can be seen in Rome in the grandiose funeral chapel of Pope Pius V designed by Domenico Fontana at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, in the Church of the Gesù and in the right transept of the Chiesa Nuova. At the notoriously awkward fountain that marked the terminus of the Acqua Felice, Vacca contributed one of the angels supporting Sixtus V'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 is conserved in the Protomoteca Capitolina on the Campidoglio. At the Villa Medici the two marble Medici lions flank the staircase; one is Roman, its pendant, made to match 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 lions to Piazza della Signoria, Florence, where with its ancient companion it flanks the steps to the Loggia dei Lanzi. In Santa Susanna, the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel have been attributed to him.