Antonio Busca was born in
Milan on July 28, 1625. He was trained by
Panfilo Nuvolone and
Ercole Procaccini the Younger and his
Apparition of the Virgin to St. Felix (Orta San Giulio, San Nicolao) may date from the 1640s. During 1648–9, under Procaccini, Busca along with
Johann Christoph Storer,
il Moncalvo, and
Luigi Pellegrini Scaramuccia helped decorate of the
Chapel of the Crucifix in the church of San Marco in Milan. In 1650–51, accompanied by
Giovanni Ghisolfi, with whom he frequently collaborated, Busca studied in Rome. Some time before 1674 he painted two canvases for the Sala dei Senatori in the Palazzo Ducale, Milan: one of these, the Tribute Money (Milan,
Pinacoteca di Brera), a strikingly classical work both in the figure style and in the grandiose architectural setting, survives. His career ended with the frescoes of
St. Francis in Glory in chapel XX of the
Sacro Monte di Orta. Busca died in Milan on December 23, 1684. Among his pupils were
Filippo Abbiati,
Andrea Lanzani and Giovanni Ambrogio Besozzi (1648–1706), but he was not popular with the succeeding generation and his teaching methods were resented as too dictatorial. There are collections of his drawings in the Ambrosiana, Milan, and in the Musei Civici, Milan. == Gallery ==