Career
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 (Saint Francis), in the Church of the Gesù (one of four marble angels in the third chapel on the right) and in the right transept of the Chiesa Nuova (Saint John the Evangelist and Saint John the Baptist, both signed). His self-portrait (1599) 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.
In Santa Susanna, the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel have been attributed to him. Outside Rome his sculpture may be found at Spello (a tabernacle in the Capella del Sacramento, Church of San Lorenzo);
His Memorie di varie antichità trovate in diversi luogia della Città di Roma (Rome 1594, republished as a supplement to Famiano Nardini"s Roma Antica, reprinted by Carlo Fea, 1790) are a primary source of information and rich human detail on the discoveries of Roman sculpture and antiquities in the later sixteenth century, and also on the destruction of antiquities, especially for the urbanistic programmes of Pope Sixtus V. His pithy numbered anecdotal notes consistently begin Mi ricordo.., "I remember..".
A modern account of his career is Sergio Lombardi, "Flaminio Vacca," in Roma di Sisto V: Le arti e la cultura, Maria Luisa Madonna, educated
(Rome: De Luca, 1993).