Biography

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.