Portrait of Luigi Cusani

The Marquis Luigi Cusani (1592-1659), an important politician, doctor of law, advocate general of the Regio Fisco, senator in Madrid and then president of the Senate, dies without direct heirs and leaves his material goods to the Maggiore Hospital. Following a dispute raised by some relatives who claim the inheritance, in the end the legacy for the hospital is small. The portrait is entrusted to Giuseppe Nuvolone, son of Panfilo and brother of Carlo Francesco. Artistically he lives in his brother's orbit, only taking on a more personal and less "shop-like" style after his death. He breaks away from this style thanks also to the meeting with Ercole Procaccini the Younger from the movement of the so-called "painters of the plague", and achieves great success in the society of the time.