Portrait of Giovan Pietro Carcano

Giovanni Pietro Carcano, called "il Ricco" (1559-1624) originally from Cantù (Como), is rightly considered the second founder of the Maggiore Hospital, after the Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza who started the construction: banker and merchant of Lana, when he dies, leaves the usufruct of half his substance for 16 years, with the obligation to enlarge the building, whose works have long languished due to lack of funds. It is estimated that the sum that reached the hospital over the years amounts to over 1,100 lire. The enlargement took place between 1629 and 1646, under the direction of the architects Giovanni Battista Pessina, Francesco Maria Richini and Fabio Mangone. Giovanni Pietro Carcano is also responsible for the foundation, also in Milan, of the Convent of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori in Porta Orientale (today Porta Venezia), in a former foundling building. Here the poor girls of the Carcano family could become Augustinian nuns. Due to the color of the monastic habit, it was also called the convent of Santa Maria delle Celesti (celestial) or Santa Maria delle Turchine (deep blue), as well as Santa Maria delle Carcanine, because of the founder. It was abolished in 1782 and the garden incorporated into that of the current Public Gardens. A curiosity about the will: Carcano requires that, starting from the descendants of his son Marco, who was two years old at the time of his father's death, all the first-born had the name Giovanni Pietro, marked with an order number. He asks to be buried in the church of San Tommaso in via Broletto. Giacomo Antonio Santagostino, a member of a family of painters in the area of Lake Como, father of Agostino (author of a beautiful canvas in the church of San Fedele), and Giacomo.