Massimiliano Soldani Benzi

Massimiliano Soldani or Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (15 July 1656 – 23 February 1740) was an Italian baroque sculptor and medallist, mainly active in Florence. Born at Montevarchi, the son of a Tuscan cavalry captain, Soldani was employed by the Medici for his entire career.

Name He first went under the name Soldani but, claiming descent from the family of bishop Soldani of Fiesole and from the aristocratic Benzi family of Figline, he applied for and received, in 1693, an official letter acknowledging his nobility based on this ancestry. From this date forward, he called himself, and is referred to in many documents as, Soldani Benzi. (possibly Louis, duc d'Aumont who was very interested in the art of medals) introduced the young man to the king.

Grand Duke Cosimo in the meantime decided that it was time for Soldani to return to Florence and take charge of the Grand-ducal Mint, the job he was meant to occupy from the very start. Upon the death of the current director, Soldani was officially made Maestro dei Coni e Custode della Zecca in 1688. As such he had his workshop and living quarters in the Uffizi. near Bucine where he died in 1740.

Work

Soldani developed into one of the finest bronze casters of his time in Europe. Though first specialising as a medallist, Soldani also produced bronze reliefs, bronze vases and free-standing figures and busts.

For Joseph Johann Adam, Prince of Liechtenstein, he produced a series of bronze copies of works of the Medici collection, mainly antique busts and figures but also after works by Michelangelo and Gianlorenzo Bernini.

Klaus Lankheit recognized in a small bronze Pietà attributed to Soldani at the Walters Art Museum a "balanced triangular composition" that is "almost a relief in form" and suggested that it had been composed first as a relief; A more elaborate version, with additional figures, in the Kress collection at the Seattle Art Museum, was identified as by Soldani by Ulrich Middeldorf. A second table bronze, Venus and the Wounded Adonis, on a richly-mounted ebony base raised on bronze paw feet, is also at the Walters Art Museum.

At rare intervals he exhibited terra cotta bozzetti at the irregularly staged exhibitions of the Accademia del Disegno, Florence: in 1715 a Pietà in terracotta by "Sig. M.S." A highly finished terracotta relief, Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, doubtless intended as a modello to be cast in bronze as a private devotional work, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A major document of his career is his autobiography, dated 1718, correspondence, and the inventory taken after his death.

A collection of his drawings is in the Uffizi in Florence.

Doccia After his death, his heirs sold some of his wax models to marchese Carlo Ginori, who had them adapted by his chief modeller, Gaspero Bruschi, and reproduced in porcelain at his Doccia porcelain manufactory near Florence. Thus Soldani's Apollo in His Chariot, Venus Plucking the Wings of Cupid and Virtue Overpowering Vice all exist as Doccia porcelain groups.