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Soldani recreated for a short time the tradition of the Italian cast medal. From a noble Florentine family, he began studying drawing with Baldassare Franceschini at age nineteen. In 1678 Cosimo III decided that Soldani should be trained to take the position of master of the grand ducal mint. Cosimo sent him for training first to the Grand Ducal Academy in Rome from 1678-81. In Rome he studied with the painter Ciro Ferri, the sculptor Ercole Ferrata and the medalist Pietro Travani. Soldani then went to the court of Louis XIV where he worked under Francois Cheron and Joseph Roettiers. He returned to Florence in 1682, reorganized the mint there, became professor at the Accademia del Disegno in 1684 and master of the mint in 1688. As well as being a medalist to Cosimo III and Christina of Sweden, Soldani was a sculptor in bronze. His medals are large and always cast; when struck medals were called for, they were engraved by other artists, such as G. B. Guglielmada or Peter Paul Borner (see the note to nos. 106, 107). See Forrer 5, pp. 565-68; 8, p. 211; Mario Labo in Thieme-Becker 31, p. 235; Lankheit, pp. 110-53 (medals and coins on pp. 114-23), 191-97, 283-84; H. R. Weihrauch, Europaische Bronzestatuetten, Brunswick 1967, pp. 423-29; Detroit, pp. 102-43; Pollard, Udine, pp. 154- 57; Pyke, pp. 139-40. --- from The Molinari Collection, Andrea S. Norris and Ingrid Weber, Published by Bowdoin College, 1976