Joseph Anton von Maffei (4 September 1790 – 1 September 1870) was a German

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through per ...

. Together with Joseph von Baader (1763–1835) and Theodor

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , literally "free lord" or "free lady") and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empir ...

von Cramer-Klett (1817–1884), Maffei was one of the three most important railway pioneers in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

Early life

Joseph Anton Maffei was born in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

, the son of an Italian tradesman from

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...

. The Palazzo Maffei still stands today on the Piazza delle Erbe. His father came to Munich in order to run a tobacco wholesale business, that Joseph Anton Maffei continued. In 1835 Maffei was one of the founding shareholders of the Bavarian Mortgage and Discount Bank (''Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank'').

Railway pioneer

In 1836 Maffei founded the locomotive firm of J. A. Maffei in the

English Garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...

in Munich. His desire was to make Bavaria competitive in the field of industrial engines. From small beginnings, a locomotive factory of world renown arose. Maffei, amongst others, also championed the construction of the railway line from Munich to Augsburg and supported Johann Ulrich Himbsel in building the private railway from Munich to Starnberg. In 1864 the 500th locomotive was delivered.

Other achievements

In 1851 Maffei supplied the first steamer, the ''Maximilian'', for boat services on

Lake Starnberg Lake Starnberg, or ''Starnberger See'' ) — called Lake Würm, or ''Würmsee'' , until 1962 — is Germany's second-largest body of fresh water, having great depth, and fifth-largest lake by area. It and its surroundings lie in three different Ba ...

. By 1926 there were 44 steamships. Maffei was also a city councillor (''Magistratsrat'') in Munich and busied himself e.g. with the construction of the famous hotel, the Bayerischer Hof.

Death

Maffei died in Munich.

Maffei's legacy

Joseph Anton Ritter von Maffei died on 1 September 1870. His grave may still be found today at the Old Southern Cemetery (

Alter Südfriedhof The Alter Südfriedhof (''Old South Cemetery'') also known as "Alter Südlicher Friedhof" is a cemetery in Munich, Germany. It was founded by Duke Albrecht V as a plague cemetery in 1563 about half a kilometer south of the Sendlinger Ga ...

) in Munich. The locomotive works he founded survived him by some 60 years, but in 1930 J. A. Maffei went bankrupt and was amalgamated with the firm of Krauss in 1930 to form

Krauss-Maffei KraussMaffei is a German manufacturer of injection molding machines, machines for plastics extrusion technology, and reaction process machinery. It was acquired by ChemChina in 2016. History Locomotives KraussMaffei was formed in 1931 from a me ...

. Today, Villa Maffei in

Feldafing Feldafing () is a municipality in Starnberg district, Bavaria, Germany, and is located on the west shore of Lake Starnberg, southwest of Munich. History The history of Feldafing begins on the Roseninsel or Rose Island, the only island in Lak ...

(on Lake Starnberg) houses a museum and exhibitions.

Origin of the Maffei family

The surname von Maffei or Maffei is a

patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...

name derived from the

personal name A personal name, or full name, in onomastic terminology also known as prosoponym (from Ancient Greek πρόσωπον / ''prósōpon'' - person, and ὄνομα / ''onoma'' - name), is the set of names by which an individual person is kno ...

Matthäus (German). In ancient times the Maffei family settled in Verona from