His works are present in the Duomo and in the monumental cemetery of Milanas well as in other public places of the metropolis, but also in St. Petersburg and Dusseldorf. The monument to the Warrior of Legnano, symbol of the main city of the Upper Milan area, is also signed by him. And it is – was – his Domina, the work that welcomed the guests of Villa Alceo, destroyed by the German influencer Janis Danner and his friends during a stay in the Varese area.
Pride of Viggiù
Let’s talk about Enrico Butti, sculptor born and died in Viggiù, active between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Born in April 1847 in the town on the border with Switzerland into a family of marble workers, in 1861 he was in Milan to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera. To make ends meet, he reproduced works by other sculptors in marble.
He made his debut in 1872, while in 1874 he created Eleonora d’Este who goes to see Tasso in prison, now in St. Petersburg. Subsequently his style becomes more sober. I’m from this period The angel of evocation for the Cavi-Bussi tomb at the Monumental Cemetery of Milan, the Warrior of the Legnano monument and The Miner, which earned him the Grand Prix and the silver medal at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris.
The celebratory works
He specializes in commemorative monuments, such as the one at the General Sirtori placed in the current Montanelli gardens, and funerary (The Dying of 1891 for the Casati Edicola). For twenty years, between 1893 and 1913, he taught sculpture at Brera. Among the most important commissions of this period I minatori del Sempione e the statue of the Unification of Italy for the Vittoriano in Rome (1909).
In 1913 he left Milan and returned to Viggiù, struggling with lung problems. Among the works of this period the monument to Giuseppe Verdi in Piazza Buonarroti in Milan (1913) and those for the fallen in Viggiù (1919), Gallarate (1924) and Varese (1925). From 1928 he also devoted himself to painting. He died on 31 January 1932 in his villa in Viggiù.
