The critical interpretation of an unpublished document conserved in the Florence State Archives enables us to reflect more deeply on various salient moments in the career of the Tuscan sculptor Agostino Cornacchini (Pescia, Pistoia 1686 – L'Aquila 1762).
Attributable to the artist himself on account of numerous clues left in the text, this document was fundamental for the drafting of the Vita di Agostino Cornacchini, left as a manuscript by the Florentine intellectual Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (Florence 1676-1742), and published and made known to scholars by Herbert Keutner in 1958.
The reading of the document and the stylistic analysis of the works make it possible to amend some of the information contained in Gabburri's text and date some of Cornacchini's sculptures more precisely, for example the marble reliefs conserved in Pistoia or the busts of cardinals in the large sacristy of the church of San Carlo al Corso in Rome. Lastly, the article identifies the poetic art of the French sculptor Pierre Legros (Paris 1666 – Rome 1719) as the most important precedent for Cornacchini's stylistic development in Rome.