Portrait of Ermenegildo Castiglioni

Ermenegildo Castiglioni (1812-1896), rich colonial merchant, friend of Giuseppe Mazzini, promoter of the republican revolution in Italy, owner of large real estate areas in Milan, leaves the Maggiore hospital one million lire as an inheritance. This first picture, in which the benefactor appears gruff and almost haughty, is rejected by the Administration; a second portrait is considered the official one. The painter Giovanni Battista Todeschini known above all as frescante, was nephew of Antonio Stoppani.