Born to an aristocratic cavalry captain from Tuscany, Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi enjoyed Medici patronage. The finest bronze caster in Europe in the late 1600s, he was reported to have made sculptures as a child based on models from the della Robbia workshop. He entered the orbit of the Medicis at nineteen, when he attended their drawing school in Florence. Taken with his work, Grand Duke Cosimo I
