Die Bronzen des Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (1656–1740)

The striving for a royal crown, the ennobling of a clever financial policy, or the immortalizing of glorious victories—all of this is reflected in the grandeur of the bronzes by Massimiliano Soldani Benzi. Individuals who owned the Venus Medici or other full-size copies of ancient sculptures created by the Florentine medallion-maker around 1700, like the Liechtensteins or the Marlboroughs, thus acquired not only a technically brilliant masterpiece, but also a privilege, since they came from one of the most important collections of ancient works of its time, that of the Medici. Soldani, who trained in Rome and Paris at the behest of Grand Duke Cosimo III, produced refined new creations of the originals from antiquity, which could only be obtained through diplomatic networks, long before the art market of the eighteenth century made copies of ancient sculptures a mass product.