The son of the sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini, Pier Francesco Foggini was born at Florence in 1713. He took holy orders at the age of twelve and obtained his doctorate of theology in Pisa in 1735. In 1741 he published De primis Florentinorum Apostolis, and an edition of Virgil (Florence, 4to). In 1742 Foggini accepted an invitation from Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, second librarian of the Vatican, to come to Rome, where Benedict XIV gave him a place in the pontifical academy of history, and made him sub-librarian at the Vatican. In 1775 he succeeded Bottari as librarian. He died at Rome on 31 May 1783. He devoted a great part of his life to the study of the manuscripts of the Vatican; and published, besides the works already mentioned, Epiphanius, De XII gemmis, etc. (Rome, 1743, 4to):—Epiphanius, Comment. in Cant. (Rome, 1750, 4to): — Appendix Historiae Byzantinae (Rome, 1777).
