Pio Fedi was an Italian sculptor and engraver. After training as a goldsmith in a workshop on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Fedi studied drawing and engraving at the Accademia di Belle Arti. On a study trip to Vienna in 1838, he visited the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and won a scholarship to study in Rome for the next few years. Fedi remained in Rome until 1846, executed three sculptures, which he sent to the Academy in Florence, and then returned to Florence. In the meantime, he had decided to concentrate on sculpture because he had burnt his eyes with acid while making a copperplate. In the following years, he was commissioned by Grand Duke Leopoldo de'Medici to create the statues of Nicola Pisano and Andrea Cesalpino for the loggias of the Uffizi. Over the next few years, other public commissions followed, including one for a gigantic tomb of a Russian general. His main work, the colossal sculpture Rape of Polyxena (1860-1865), is still to be found in the Loggia dei Lanzi at the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, standing next to works by Giambologna and Benvenuto Cellini.