[1] Mario Guarnacci was born at Volterra, Province of Pisa, one of eight children of a wealthy aristocrat Raffaello Ottaviano, who was gentleman of the chamber of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III and a commendatore of the Order of Saint Stephen.

At the age of 17, he pursued studies in Florence under various teachers, including Philosophy and Theology with the Piarists; Mathematics under Lorenzo Lorenzini; and classic literature under Anton Maria Salvini.

Fortunately in 1730 the pope Clement XII, from the Florentine Corsini family, appointed a prebend of the Abbey of San Girolamo in Pisa, with a stipend.

He also collected a large number of Etruscan antiquities, which he bequeathed to his native city for a public museum, and form the core of the present Museo Etrusco Guarnacci.

Guarnacci's theories gave rise to a lively controversy involving several prominent historians and scholars of the period, such as Giovanni Lami, Scipione Maffei and Antonio Francesco Gori.