Model for a portrait medal of Francesco Redi 1677 Massimiliano Soldani Italian This rare wax model conveys the extraordinary refinement of Soldanis art. It illuminates the precision and clarity of the carved model from which copies in metal would have been cast. Working in hard beeswax colored white with gypsum, the artist captured the intricacies of the sitters physiognomy and hair with great virtuosity. The wax model is the true original; the casts made from it, no matter how fine, never quite reach the same level of quality. Wax-on-slate models for medals are relatively rare, and there are few extant wax modelli by Massimiliano Soldani.The obverse (1975.1.1320a) portrays Francesco Redi, who was court phyisician to the grand dukes of Tuscany, and was also a poet, philospher and naturalist, who played a signficant role in the scientific and cultural world of seventeenth-century Florence. A pioneer in the field of medical research, he is known as the founder of experimental biology a