Portrait of Giuseppe Macchi

Giuseppe Macchi (1713-1797), notary, mayor and ordinary judge of the fief of Count Antonio Barbiano di Belgioioso, is one of the most important benefactors of the Ospedale Maggiore, which he names as universal heir. He provides that his huge fortune: 2,265,000 lire, accumulated with a wise administration and, sometimes, seems to be excessively parsimonious, used for the completion of the hospital building, according to the already existing project of the architect Pietro Castelli, and which extended up to Via Laghetto the building, previously enlarged in the seventeenth century.