Massimiliano Soldani Benzi

He attracted the attention of Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici who sent Soldani to his grand-ducal academy in Rome to study under Ciro Ferri and Ercole Ferrata, and to train in coining.

[4] 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.

[7] 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;[8] A more elaborate version, with additional figures, in the Kress collection at the Seattle Art Museum, was identified as by Soldani by Ulrich Middeldorf.

"[11] 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.

Thus Soldani's Apollo in His Chariot, Venus Plucking the Wings of Cupid and Virtue Overpowering Vice all exist as Doccia porcelain groups.