Francesco Maria Nocchieri, born in Ancona,[1] was a seventeenth-century Italian sculptor of minor reputation active in Rome, where he spent time in the large studio of Bernini.
He worked largely as a restorer of antiquities.
He was among the many Roman sculptors patronised by Christina, Queen of Sweden in her retirement in Rome;[2] for Christina he executed an Apollo (1680) to complement a set of Roman sculptures of Muses that had been found at Hadrian's Villa, which were doubtless restored by Nocchieri;[3] the Apollo is now at La Granja de San Ildefonso.
[4] The largest collection of Nocchieri's sculptures today are in the Gardens of Aranjuez, Madrid.
A terracotta bozzetto at the Ashmolean Museum represents Apollo holding his lyre, attentive to the Muses.