Niccolo Gualtieri (1688-1744) was born in Florence and after a brief period studying in Pisa returned to the city. Here he became a physician, eventually to Cosimo de Medici. His interest in natural history led him to create his own collection. While cabinets of shells were fashionable in court circles, Gualtieri’s collections were particularly impressive and he produced the magnificent ‘Index Testarum Conchyliorum’ in 1742 illustrating hundreds of shells from his own collection. Many of these had been sent by Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702). The plates were engraved by Giuseppe Menabuoni and Antonio Pazzi. He was also a professor at the University of Pisa. His collections are now in the Museo Storia Naturale di Pisa. Dance (1966) ‘Shell Collecting’ p. 57; Dance (1981) p. 74; Nissen ZBI (1978) 1736.