[1] A native of Milan, Carlo Maria Maggi came from a prominent mercantile family, wealthy enough to move in the higher echelons of Milanese society.

[2] Maggi also accepted a professorship of classics at the Palatine Schools in 1664, the same position which Parini was to take over a century later, and capped his academic achievements by becoming superintendent of the University of Pavia.

[2] A fine classicist, Maggi displayed his skills in his translations of ancient plays, both Latin (Plautus' Aulularia and Seneca's Troades) and Greek (Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides).

[4] Another recurring theme of Milanese literature first established by Maggi's works is the celebration of the verzee (Milan's vegetable market) as the place where the spirit of the city was most genuinely expressed.

Veneration for Maggi as the forefather of Lombard literature and reworkings of the Meneghino character as the embodiment of the Milanese man of the people run throughout the poetry of Domenico Balestrieri and especially Carlo Porta.