Donato Bramante (1444 – 11 April 1514), born as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio and also known as Bramante Lazzari, was an Italian architect and painter. He introduced

Renaissance architecture Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and the

High Renaissance In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...

style to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, where his plan for St. Peter's Basilica formed the basis of the design executed by

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...

. His Tempietto (

San Pietro in Montorio San Pietro in Montorio (English: "Saint Peter on the Golden Mountain") is a church in Rome, Italy, which includes in its courtyard the ''Tempietto'', a small commemorative ''martyrium'' ('martyry') built by Donato Bramante. History The Church o ...

) marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Rome (1502) when

Pope Julius II Pope Julius II (; ; born Giuliano della Rovere; 5 December 144321 February 1513) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1503 to his death, in February 1513. Nicknamed the Warrior Pope, the Battle Pope or the Fearsome ...

appointed him to build a sanctuary over the spot where

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

was martyred.

Life

Urbino

Bramante was born under the name Donato d'Augnolo, Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio, or Donato Pascuccio d'Antonio in

Fermignano Fermignano (Romagnol: ''Fermignèn'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Pesaro e Urbino in the Italian region Marche, located about west of Ancona and about southwest of Pesaro. Renaissance architect Donato Bramante (1444-1514) ...

near

Urbino Urbino ( , ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italy, Italian region of Marche, southwest of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially und ...

. Here, in 1467,

Luciano Laurana Luciano Laurana (Lutiano Dellaurana, ) (c. 1420 – 1479) was a Dalmatian Italian architect and engineer from the historic Vrana settlement near the town of Zadar in Dalmatia, (today in Croatia, then part of the Republic of Venice) After educatio ...

was adding to the Palazzo Ducale an arcaded

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary a ...

and other Renaissance features to Federico da Montefeltro's ducal palace. Bramante's architecture has eclipsed his painting skills: he knew the painters

Melozzo da Forlì Melozzo da Forlì ( – 8 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance painter and architect. His fresco paintings are notable for the use of foreshortening. He was the most important member of the Forlì painting school. Biography Melozzo was s ...

and

Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca ( , ; ; ; – 12 October 1492) was an Italian Renaissance painter, Italian painter, mathematician and List of geometers, geometer of the Early Renaissance, nowadays chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is charact ...

well, who were interested in the rules of perspective and illusionistic features in

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, ; ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian Renaissance painter, a student of Ancient Rome, Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with Perspective (graphical), pe ...

's painting.

Milan

Around 1474, Bramante moved to

, a city with a deep Gothic architectural tradition, and built several churches in the new Antique style. The Duke,

Ludovico Sforza Ludovico Maria Sforza (; 27 July 1452 – 27 May 1508), also known as Ludovico il Moro (; 'the Moor'), and called the "arbiter of Italy" by historian Francesco Guicciardini,

, made him virtually his court architect, beginning in 1476, with commissions that culminated in the famous

trompe-l'œil ; ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional surface. , which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving p ...

choir of the church of

Santa Maria presso San Satiro Santa Maria presso San Satiro ( Saint Mary near Saint Satyrus) is a church in Milan. The Italian Renaissance structure (1476–1482) houses the early medieval shrine to Satyrus, brother of Saint Ambrose. The church is known for its false ap ...

(1482–1486). Space was limited, and Bramante made a theatrical

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

, combining the painterly arts of perspective with Roman details. There is an octagonal sacristy, surmounted by a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

. In Milan, Bramante also built the tribune of Santa Maria delle Grazie (1492–99); other early works include the Cloisters of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan (1497–1498), and some other constructions in

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

(where he worked on the

Cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

, setting the design and creating the crypt and part of the apse) and possibly Legnano. However, in 1499, with his Sforza patron driven from Milan by an invading French army, Bramante made his way to Rome, where he was already known to the powerful Cardinal Riario.

Rome

In Rome, he was soon recognized by Cardinal Della Rovere, shortly to become

. For Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile or possibly Julius II, Bramante designed one of the most harmonious buildings of the Renaissance: the Tempietto (1502) of

on the

Janiculum The Janiculum (; ), occasionally known as the Janiculan Hill, is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although it is the second-tallest hill (the tallest being Monte Mario) in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among the pro ...

. Despite its small scale, the construction has all the rigorous proportions and symmetry of Classical structures, surrounded by slender Doric columns, surmounted by a dome. According to a later engraving by

Sebastiano Serlio Sebastiano Serlio (6 September 1475 – c. 1554) was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential treatise ...

, Bramante planned to set it within a colonnaded courtyard. In November 1503, Julius engaged Bramante for the construction of the grandest European architectural commission of the 16th century, the complete rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica. During this time, he created the plans for a vast outdoor courtyard connecting the surrounding buildings called,

Cortile del Belvedere The (Belvedere Courtyard or Belvedere Court) was a major architectural work of the High Renaissance at the Vatican Palace in Rome. Designed by Donato Bramante from 1505 onward, its concept and details reverberated in courtyard design, formalize ...

. The cornerstone of the first of the great piers of the crossing was laid with ceremony on 17 April 1506. Very few drawings by Bramante survive, though some by his assistants do, demonstrating the extent of the team which had been assembled. Bramante's vision for St Peter's, a centralized Greek cross plan that symbolized sublime perfection for him and his generation (compare Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi, influenced by Bramante's work) was fundamentally altered by the extension of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

after his death in 1514. Bramante's plan envisaged four great chapels filling the corner spaces between the equal

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

s, each one capped with a smaller dome surrounding the great dome over the crossing. So Bramante's original plan was very much more Romano-Byzantine in its forms than the basilica that was actually built. (See St Peter's Basilica for further details.) Bramante also worked on several other commissions. Among his earliest works in Rome, before the Basilica's construction was under way, is the cloister (1500–1504) of Santa Maria della Pace near

Piazza Navona Piazza Navona () is a public open space in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the 1st century AD Stadium of Domitian and follows the form of the open space of the stadium in an elongated oval. The ancient Romans went there to watch the '' a ...

Works

* Casa Fontana-Silvestri; Milan, ca. 1480 *

; Milan, ca. 1482–1486 * Palazzo Visconti frescoes;

Pinacoteca Di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

, Milan, 1486-1487 * Pavia Cathedral (project for the dome and crypt); Pavia, ca. 1488-1492 *

Palazzo della Cancelleria The Palazzo della Cancelleria (Palace of the Chancellery, referring to the former Apostolic Chancery of the Pope) is a Renaissance palace in Rome, Italy, situated between the present Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and the Campo de' Fiori, in the rion ...

; Rome, ca. 1489-1513 * Christ at the Column (Bramante);

, Milan, ca. 1490 * Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio (project for refectory); Milan, ca. 1492 * Cascina Pozzobonelli; Milan, 1492 *

Castello Sforzesco The Sforza Castle ( ; ) is a medieval fortification located in Milan, northern Italy. It was built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on the remnants of a 14th-century fortification. Later renovated and enlarged, in the 1 ...

(tower); Vigevano, 1492-1494 * Santa Maria delle Grazie (cloister and apse); Milan, 1492–1498 *

(project for loggia bridge and frescoes); Milan, ca. 1494 * Cloisters of Sant'Ambrogio; design 1497, two built in 1505 and 1620-1630 respectively * Chiostro del Bramante; Santa Maria della Pace, Rome, ca. 1500-1504 *

Milan Cathedral Milan Cathedral ( ; ), or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary (), is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Dedicated to the Nativity of Mary, Nativity of St. Mary (), it is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdi ...

(central cupola); Milan, design 1488, built 1500-1510 * The Tempietto,

; Rome, 1502 * Basilica of San Magno; Legnano, 1504-1513 *

(plan); Rome, 1505 * The Bramante Staircase;

Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums (; ) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the best-known Roman sculptures and ...

, Vatican City, 1505 * St. Peter's Basilica; Rome, design 1503, ground breaking 1506 *

; Vatican City, Rome, 1506 * ; Port of Civitavecchia, Civitavecchia, 1508-1535 *

San Giovanni in Oleo San Giovanni in Oleo is a chapel adjacent to the churches of Rome, church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina in Rome. It commemorates the place where, according to legend, in 92 AD, at the hands of the emperor Domitian, the apostle Saint John the Evan ...

; ca. 1509 * Palazzo Caprini (also known as Raphael's House); Rome, started around 1510 (demolished in the 17th century) * Basilica della Santa Casa (facade, design of marble screen, 12 inner chapels); Loreto * Vatican loggias;

Apostolic Palace The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the build ...

, Vatican City In addition to building, Bramante wrote about architecture and composed eighty

sonnet A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...

Footnotes

Notes

References

11.^Guagliumi Silvia.(2014) Donato Bramante.Pittore e sommo architetto in Lombardia e a Roma.L'uomo, le idee e l'opera. Silvia Editrice ISBN 978-88-96036-63-1.

External links

Donato Bramante - World History Encyclopedia
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bramante, Donato Donato Bramante Italian Renaissance architects 1444 births 1514 deaths People from the Province of Pesaro and Urbino 15th-century Italian architects 16th-century Italian architects 15th-century Italian painters 16th-century Italian painters Italian Roman Catholics