Ludovico Ottavio Burnacini

Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini (1636 – 12 December 1707) was an Italian architect, and theatrical stage and costume designer, who served the imperial court in Vienna beginning in 1652. He is considered one of the most important "theater engineers" in Baroque Europe and is a master of drawing. His work as a stage designer for the lavish entertainments at the court of the Emperors Leopold I and Joseph I is preserved in numerous engravingsBrini, Amalia Barigozzi (1972
"Burnacini, Ludovico Ottaviano"
''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'', Vol. 15. Treccani. Retrieved online 3 July 2016 . and in many drawings in the collections of th
Theatermuseum
in Vienna.

Life and work

Origins and birth

Lodovico Ottavio was the son of a certain 'Grazia' and the theater architect Giovanni Burnacini from Cesena, from whom he learned the arts of theater architecture, stage machinery and set design from a young age. His birthday and place of birth are still unknown.

With regard to his place of birth, recent research has not been able to confirm the references of early literature to Mantua, which until now has been adopted by most lexica and reference works. As for the previously held assumption that Giovanni Burnacini might have received several commissions in Mantua, no archival documents or contemporaneous sources have been able to confirm this.

Since an intense and continuous period of artistic activity in the career of Giovanni Burnacini has been documented beginning in 1636 in Venice, it seems plausible that Lodovico Ottavio was born in the lagoon city.

Education and Venetian influence

In the middle of the 17th century, Venice was one of the most important theater cities in Europe. Beginning in the 1640s, Lodovico Ottavio’s father Giovanni led renowned theater houses in Venice, such as the ''San Cassian'', the ''Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo'' and the ''Teatro Santissimi Apostoli''. Some early engravings based on Giovanni’s designs, such as the one entitled
Trionfo del SS. Sacramento
' (Prague, 1652), prove the close cooperation between father and son fostered during Lodovico's childhood. Working in his father’s workshop, Lodovico Ottavio, from an early age, witnessed the theater world, observing the eager cooperation and collaboration of ''impresari'', engineers, composers, musicians, actors etc.

It seems plausible that during his time in Venice Lodovico also had a chance to see the famous ''maschere'' (masks and disguises) of the Venetian carnival and to watch performances of the Italian comedians, which were very popular in the 17th century. In fact, numerous references in his graphic work—i.e. in his many drawings created decades later—indicate the importance of such experiences of his youth.

Moving to Vienna in 1651

In 1651 Emperor Ferdinand III summoned Giovanni Burnacini to Vienna due to his artistic merits and he took the sixteen-year-old Lodovico Ottavio with him. A few months later, the entire family followed, and from then on they resided in Vienna.

The move of the Burnacini family to Vienna was presumably due to an invitation by Empress Eleonora Gonzaga-Nevers, who in the same year (1651) became the third wife of Emperor Ferdinand III and who made intensive contacts with the Venetian cultural scene.

Between Vienna, Regensburg and Prague

From this point on, the Burnacinis were responsible for the design of festivals and the construction of theaters, including the invention of all the necessary decorations for the imperial court. At the imperial court theater, they introduced their own system of convertible stage sets made of canvas flats (backdrop stage), which had been tried and tested in Italy, and perfected it further. The most famous Burnacini stage works from this early period at the service of the Habsburgs include the tournament opera ''La gara'' by Alberto Vimina (Vienna, 1652) and ''L'inganno d'Amore'' by Benedetto Ferrari, which was held on March 3, 1653 in Regensburg on the occasion of the Reichstag (December 1652 – May 1654) and was premiered in a specially built, wooden theater house. Various other works followed, sometimes for ephemeral buildings such as the
Triumph of the Blessed Sacrament
' in Prague in 1652 and the ''Castrum Doloris'' for Archduke Ferdinand IV from 1654, of which exists a copperplate engraving in the collections of the Albertina in Vienna (inv. No. DG 2018/207).

The death of the father in 1655

After his father's untimely death on July 21, 1655, Lodovico Ottavio had to take over all responsibilities and take care of the entire family, consisting of five siblings. Nevertheless, after the government was taken over by Emperor Leopold I in 1657, Burnacini was not confirmed to his father's office. From July 1, 1657 the new monarch engaged Giovanni Battista Angelini († 1658), who had been the architect and stage designer of his uncle Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, during his governorship in Brussels.

The imperial theater engineer

On January 1, 1659—after Angelini's death—Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini was appointed as imperial court architect and stage designer, a position he held for the rest of his life. From the very beginning, Lodovico Ottavio had to prove himself with all the skills of his art, because in Vienna, plays, concerts and ballets were performed almost daily at the imperial court. Church holidays, carnival, state visits as well as joyful events at the court such as weddings, births, coronations etc. naturally gave rise to a demand for increasingly greater festivities. For such events the young theater engineer not only designed stage decorations and costumes, but had to build entire theaters and to invent stage machines and parade floats that served to amuse the emperor and his guests. Although it was interrupted by the plague in 1679 and the Turkish siege in 1683, there was an extremely lively cultural life in Vienna in the late 17th century, in which Burnacini played a major role.

The comedy house on the ''Rosstummelplatz''

The wooden theater, which Giovanni Burnacini had built in Regensburg in 1653 on the occasion of the Reichstag, was dismantled and shipped down the Danube to Vienna, to be re-erected on the ''Rosstummelplatz'' (riding arena) in summer 1659, at Emperor Leopold I's request. It became an extremely popular comedy house and was an impressive theater “in the size and height of a fairly large church building” with a spacious ground floor and two tiers with 60 boxes (“Zimmerl”), which is said to have offered space for “several thousand people”. The multiple backdrops allowed scene changes “well eight manner without pulling a single curtain.”

Although this comedy house was demolished in 1662, due to the opposition of the Jesuits and perhaps also in connection with the death of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the uncle of Emperor Leopold I, it marked an important episode in the history of the Commedia dell'arte in Vienna. Well-known acting troops had been invited to perform there, playing "every day except Friday". The most famous comedians in Europe made guest appearances in Vienna, such as the Arlecchino Domenico Biancolelli (1636–1688). Possibly in homage to the comedies played between 1660 and 1662, Burnacini later drew many of his grotesques and Commedia dell'arte characters, which are now kept in th
Theatermuseum
in Vienna.

The theater ''auf der Kurtine'' – the new court theater

Between 1666 and 1668 Lodovico Ottavio Burnacini constructed the so-called ''Theater auf der Kurtine'', which rose next to the fortification of the imperial palace (''Burgbastei'') at the site of today’s court library, near Josefsplatz.
In this theater the most magnificent operas of the Leopoldin court were performed, first and foremost Antonio Cesti's '' Il pomo d’oro'' (1668) on occasion of the first wedding of Leopold I with the Spanish infanta Margarita Teresa and of her 17th birthday. For this opulent opera Burnacini created 23 different stage decorations that captivated the audience through rapid changing of scenes and through other stage machines of various kinds. ''Il pomo d'oro'' became known all over the world through the prints by Matthäus Küsel and Frans Geffels based on Burnacini's designs. This and other operas, whose libretti were magnificently complemented with large-format engravings, such as ''Il fuoco eterno delle Vestali'' (1674) composed by Antonio Draghi and the ''Monarchia latina trionfante'' (1678) composed by Draghi and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer vastly contributed to Burnacini's international reputation.

In 1688, after a visit to Vienna, the Swedish architect and art collector Nicodemus Tessin the younger wrote:

''Bejim H. Burnacini der trusser undt ingegner vom Keijsser ist, habe ich alles höffligkeit genossen, in theatern undt festen wirdt heüt zu tage dass gröste lumiere von allen haben.''

(''"At Mr. Burnacini's, who is steward and engineer of the emperor, I enjoyed all courtesy; concerning theater and festivities nowadays he will be the most luminous one"'').

Tessin also described some features of the famous theater, which had to be dismantled shortly before the Turkish siege in 1683, because of the high risk of fire.

Burnacini as an architect

In 1676/1677 Burnacini was commissioned to rebuild Laxenburg Castle

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