Portrait of Alessandro Maffei

In July 1704, on the Schellenberg hill above Donauwörth in Bavaria, two brothers from Verona fought on the same side. Alessandro Maffei, the man in this portrait, was second in command of the Bavarian troops. His younger brother Scipione had joined him as a volunteer. Scipione later became one of Verona's best-known scholars and wrote Verona illustrata, a learned description of his city.

Alessandro had entered the service of Bavaria at about 20, in the following of Max Emanuel, the young Elector who was his own age, and he stayed loyal to that house all his life. The museum describes him here as the Elector's general, in parade armour, holding the baton of command and wearing an enormous wig, with the city of Namur behind him. He was its governor in the last years of the War of the Spanish Succession. The portrait is by Joseph Vivien, a French court portraitist, and the Friends of the Museum gave it in 1992. After Alessandro died in 1730, Scipione published his brother's memoirs.