An unpublished notarial document regarding an episode from the married life of Carlo Maratti, countersigned by Giovan Pietro Bellori and dated 9 March 1675, offers the occasion for a rapid review of the painter’s biographical fortunes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially bearing in mind the general silence of the sources about his family situation. The article focuses especially on the biography of Maratti left unfinished by Bellori, and — thanks to a letter by Giovan Battista Pacichelli published in 1695 but overlooked by scholarship regarding the Roman antiquarian — gives a broader context for how it was intended to form part of a revised and expanded edition of the Vite, in preparation during the five years preceding the writer’s death.