The paper examines the marble bust of Ettore Vernazza, currently housed at the Notarial Council of Genoa, proposing for the first time an attribution to the Florentine sculptor Francesco Fanelli. Overlooked until now by scholarly literature, the work fits into a broader context of renewed interest in the figure of the Genoese notary which began in the early decades of the seventeenth-century. Through documentary research and comparative stylistic analysis, the article highlights the strong chronological and iconographical correspondence between the bust and a now-lost full-figure statue of Vernazza, created by Fanelli in 1633 for the Lazzaretto della Foce. The attribution is supported by specific technical and stylistic similarities with other Ligurian works by the sculptor, enriching Fanelli's Genoese corpus of works and underscoring his adherence to an austere and hieratic portrait style rooted in late-Mannerist Florence. The study also restores to the bust a meaningful role in the visual culture of seventeenth-century Genoa, as a tangible expression of public commemoration of the city's benefactors.