BENINTENDI, Orsino - b. ~1440 Firenze, d. ~1498 Firenze

Orsino Benintendi belonged to an Italian family of cerajuoli (wax modellers), named Benintendi. The trade had already been practiced by Orsino’s father, Zanobi, and his grandfather, Jacopo. Orsino’s son, Antonio, was also a wax modeller.

Giorgio Vasari mentions in his Life of Andrea del Verrocchio an assistant named Orsino, who under the guidance of the master had taken the previously crude craft of wax working to a new and magisterial level. According to Vasari, Orsino also made the deceptively realistic, life-size wax figures of Lorenzo, in the wake of the Pazzi conspiracy.

Cast of the Dead Mask of Lorenzo de' Medici

Making dead masks was a common practice in fifteenth-century Florence. These masks were placed over chimney-pieces, doors or windows. Lorenzo de’ Medici (“Il Magnifico”) died during the late night of 8 April, 1492 at the age of forty-three in his villa in Careggi, near Florence. Immediately afterward, a cast was made of the deceased’s face from which this plaster cast was in turn made, preserving the authentic features of Lorenzo, from the wide and deformed bridge of his nose to his protruding lower lip and strong chin.