The son of Bernardo Butti, an inciser, and Anna Maria Giudici, he was born in Viggiù on the 3rd of April 1847, part of a family of craftsmen which traditionally had been dedicated to the working of marble. His uncle Stefano (1807-1889), well-known in Piedmont, and his cousin Guido (1805-1878), an ‚migr‚ in the United States, were both sculptors.
At the age of 14 he moved to Milan where he followed the courses of the sculptor P. Magni at the Brera Art Academy. Due to his precarious economic conditions he contemporaneously worked as a 'translator' in marble of the works by other artists (the same Magni, Ugo Zannoni and Francesco Barzaghi), in this way perfecting his own natural talent as a sculptor.
The circle and atmosphere of the Scapigliatura Movement did not influence his first works - see, for example, Le stizze [Vexation] of 1875, exhibited at the Museum of Viggiù - in which he expressed the taste for the anecdote and the genre scene.
This vein soon gave way to a plastic conception which evidenced populism and social themes, in this case taking up the example given by Vincenzo Vela.
Of the works belonging to this period we can mention Il minatore [The Miner] of 1888 and the monument to Alberto da Giussano of 1900 (the plaster models for which are conserved in Viggiù).
In 1893 he became a professor at the Brera Art Academy where he kept the Chair until 1913. Due to precarious health he returned to Viggiù where far from Milanese artistic influences he lived until his death on the 21st of January 1932. During this final period of his artistic life he applied himself to painting as well as to sculpture, once again proposing the former stylistic elements without evolving them further (perhaps due to his isolation from the contemporary tendencies).
His home has been transformed into a museum of his works.