The article examines two matters simultaneously: on the one hand the figure of Cornelis de Bie and his book Het gulden cabinet (1661-1662); on the other the cameo dedicated to Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the same text. In the Gulden cabinet, which awaits a more thorough assessment in the panorama of artistic literature (Dutch and Italian), we find a compilation of as many as twenty-four biographies of Italian artists presented together with a corresponding number of Flemish origin (these numbering 212 in all). The short biography of Bernini – which follows that of the Flemish artist François Duquesnoy – highlights at least three important aspects: the mention of Bernini as a painter, the literary concept of 'living marble', and the rapidity with which the sculptor's fame reached Flemish territory, that is, well before his journey to Paris and all previously known 17th-century biographies. De Bie's volume leaves room for hypotheses regarding the creation of Bernini's biography and the acquaintances its author must have entertained in order to receive valuable information about the artists. It is also interesting to appraise certain Italian texts of the same period (Giovanni Michele Silos, Pinacotheca, 1673; Luigi Scaramuccia, Le finezze de' pennelli italiani, 1674) with the same literary characteristics (prose and poetry) which discuss the idea of 'living marble' applied particularly to the 'Apollo and Daphne', a sculpture also examined in the Flemish text.