FRANCESCO SCIPIONE, Marquis, a celebrated Italian writer, was born at Verona in 1675, and studied five years at the college of Parma, where he gave early manifestations of eminent ability, both in literature and science. Born of a noble family, and early admitted to familiar intercourse with men and women of culture and refinement, Maffei's mind was favourably directed from the idle frivolities with which a person of his rank is apt to waste his youth, and turned towards those nobler pursuits in which he afterwards won for himself so distinguished a name. He visited Rome in 1699, and besides acquainting himself with the monuments of that city, gained the friendship of some of her more distinguished men. Eager for all sorts of distinction, he, in 1704, joined his brother Alessandro, then lieutenant-general in the Bavarian service, and as a volunteer reaped the laurels of a soldier at the battle of Donauwert. The evidence of personal bravery which S. Maffei here displayed gave dignity to his pen when he lifted it afterwards in his Della Scienza Chiamata Cavalleresca, to denounce the practice of duelling, then so common in his native country. In conjunction with Apostolo Zeno and Vallisnieri, Maffei commenced, in 1710, the Giornale dei Litterati, the earliest literary journal in Italy. His Osservazioni Litterarie, published in 1737–40, in 6 vols., was a continuation of his literary journal after its discontinuance in 1730. He took great interest in the reformation of the Italian theatres, then in a deplorable condition; and in his work, Trattato dei Teatri Antichi e Moderni, defended the histrionic art against the denunciation of Father Cocina, a performance which met with the approbation of Pope Benedict XIV. Nor did his efforts stop here; in 1713 he wrote, and brought upon the stage, the tragedy of La Metope, a work which was received with very great applause, and won for its author the title of the "Veronese Sophocles" from the celebrated Voltaire. Maffei now directed his attention more exclusively to political studies, and brought out his greatest work, the Verona Illustrata, a history and description of his native city, remarkable alike for extensive learning, historical insight, and elegant writing. The reputation of Maffei was spread over Europe, when, in 1732, he visited Paris, and collected materials for his Galliae Antiquitates, which he published at Paris during the following year. He afterwards went to England, where he was received at the court of George II., was made a member of the Royal Society, and had the degree of LL.D. conferred on him by the university of Oxford. He spent four years in travel, and returned to Italy by Holland and Germany. He died at Verona in 1755, aged eighty years.

In addition to the works already mentioned, Maffei wrote three treatises against the popular belief in magic; one on the legitimacy of receiving interest on a loan of money, entitled Dell' Impiego del Denaro (1746), for which he suffered a temporary exile, through the influence of the Jansenists; and one, the Museum Veronense, on ancient inscriptions and hieroglyphics, published at Verona in 1749. A collected edition of Maffei's works was published at Venice, in 28 vols. 8vo, 1790.