Portrait of Pietro Antonio Clerici

The Marquis Pietro Antonio Clerici, deputy in the Pious Places of Santa Maria della Neve and San Giovanni alle Fonti, former benefactor of the hospital in life, with a will dated October 27, 1670, orders the Ospedale Maggiore an immediate bequest, and others to follow, subject to the fact that his grandchildren contract marriage or not within the thirtieth year of age. If this had not happened, their entitlement would have gone to the hospital. In the will he also asks that 6,000 masses be celebrated for the salvation of his soul. The portrait commission is assigned to Agostino Santagostino, a painter in vogue in the Milan of the time. Belonging to a family of painters from Mandello Lario, on Lake Como (he is the brother of Giacinto and the son of Giacomo Antonio) he is the author of several paintings preserved in Milanese churches and the compiler of an artistic guide of Milan ("Immortality and glory of the brush ", published by the Agnelli typography). The portrait is a bit stiff, with several references to Milanese painters of the seventeenth century.