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 engravings and in many drawings in the collections of the Theatermuseum in Vienna.

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.

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.

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.