BUSSI, Santino
Santino Bussi, a stuccoist, came from an Italian family of artists. He belonged to the circle of leading Viennese artists, such as Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, and Domenico Martinelli.
His father, the painter Giovanni Francesco Bussi, taught him early how to draw, and later he joined the workshop of a plasterer to learn his craft. At the age of twelve years he worked in a group of builders and artists as a migrant plasterer in Milan, Bohemia, Moravia and Prague. In 1695 he was invited to Vienna by the Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein. In Vienna he ran a workshop with several assistants and made the stucco works in several palaces (the Liechtenstein Summer Palace, the Palais Kaunitz, the Palais Harrach, the Palais Schwartzenberg, etc.)
Bussi also worked in several castles in Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia), and in churches in Vienna, Dürnstein, Melk, Klosterneuburg, and St. Florian.
