Francesco Scipione Maffei, marquis, an Italian author, horn in Verona, June 1,1675, died there, Feb. 11, 1755. He was educated at Parma, and in 1698 entered the academy of the Arcadians at Rome. He was in the Bavarian service during the war of the Spanish succession, and became field marshal. His treatise Delia scienza chiamata cavalleresea, in which he denounced duelling, was published at Rome in 1710, and in the same year he was one of the founders of the Giornale del letterati. His Trattato del teatri antichi e moderni and his tragedy Merope (1713) aided in the reformation of the Italian stage. His Verona illustrata (1731 - '2; new ed., 8 vols., 1792-'3) was suggested by the discovery of manuscripts in the cathedral of Verona; and his Gallice Antiquitates (Paris, 1733) was the result of extensive travels. He published three treatises against the belief in magic, and had a controversy with the Jansenists, who procured his exile when 70 years of age, which however was brief. His collected works were published at Venice (21 vols., 1790).