Portrait of Carlo Castiglioni

Carlo Castiglioni (1853-1930), of an ancient noble Milanese family, was the son of the lawyer Gaetano, cashier of the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo. Castiglioni was an engineer with avant-garde ideas (in 1903 he presened the plan for an underground railway in Milan, in other words, a subway "ante litteram "), a successful building contractor with the partners Binda and Ballerio, director of the Teatro dei Filodrammatici; he designed and managed the work of the theatre's interior design. He was a passionate traveler and councilor of the College of builders and entrepreneurs of Milan. In his will where appoints as heiresses the grandchildren and daughters of his brother Giuseppe an engineer. He allocates the sum of 200,000 lire to the Ospedale Maggiore "of which it is good that all the Milanese have to remember". The commission of the portrait is entrusted to Guido Zuccaro, a pupil of the Accademia di Brera by Raffaele Casnedi and Giuseppe Mentessi, on the proposal of the family, since the benefactor knew the artist. In a letter to the Commission, the painter confirms his attendance, claiming that he would have also drawn on his personal memories for the portrait. Castiglioni is depicted in his study as an engineer: ruler and square, tools of the trade, are hung on the wall; plants, papers, books rest on the table and on the ground; on the walls, paintings and maps. The taste for detail may perhaps derive from the painter's experience as a miniaturist.