Donato Bramante

Italian architect

• Born: 1444
• Birthplace: Monte Asdruvaldo, near Urbino, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: April 11, 1514
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

One of the greatest architects of the Italian Renaissance, Bramante stands out for the pure classicism of his buildings. His influence and work extended throughout Europe, including his design for St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.

Early Life

Donato Bramante (doh-NAH-to brah-MAHN-tay) took his father’s nickname, Il Bramante (the dreamer), as his cognomen. At first a painter, he may have studied at Mantua with Andrea Mantegna and with Piero della Francesca at Urbino. Their influence is visible in Bramante’s interest in the science of perspective. At Mantua, he may have met the architectLeon Battista Alberti, designing there his noted church of S. Andrea.

Life’s Work

In the 1470’s, Bramante primarily designed architectural decorations for interiors and facades. In the new ducal palace at Urbino in about 1476, he helped decorate the studiolo of the duke of Urbino. In this small office, the walls are covered with pictures formed by inlaid wood of different tones so as to create an atmosphere both of intimacy and of illusionary space. Bramante also made illustrations of illusionistic perspective in the duke’s chapel and library.

At Urbino, Bramante had access to the graceful architectural plans of Luciano Laurana, patronized by the duke of Urbino along with Piero della Francesca. Alberti may have contributed to the design of the new palace, influencing Bramante, who would soon become an architect. Alberti’s classically inspired treatise on architecture, as well as those of Filarete and Francesco di Giorgio, were certainly available as manuals for Bramante. In the Palazzo del Podestà in Bergamo in 1477, Bramante created the illusion of “opening” a wall by painting on it a loggia or corridor, with philosophers seated between the columns.

From about 1479 to 1499, Bramante was in Milan. His first project there was to construct the three-aisled, barrel-vaulted, domed church of S. Maria presso (near) S. Satiro, a diminutive ninth century Carolingian church. About this same time (1481) can be dated the large print prepared by Prevedari. It contains fanciful classical architectural themes and is signed by Bramante.

Commissioned by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Bramante’s plan for the cathedral of Pavia in 1488 foreshadowed in boldness his future conception for St. Peter’s. A high dome was to rest on eight massive piers, creating a large central space. The choir was to be cruciform, its three arms ending in apses, the whole arranged in a harmonious hierarchy of proportions. In 1492, Bramante left the project, which was completed after his death and much altered by later architects.

Bramante designed the loggia (or ponticella) of Ludovico Sforza and decorated some rooms in Castello Sforzesco, of which all that remains is his painting of mythical Argus. The Brera Pinacoteca contains paintings certainly by Bramante: Christ at the Pillar and eight frescoes of artists and warriors that, with his Heraclitus and Democritus , once decorated a room in Milan’s Palazzo Panigarola. In these, Bramante painted shadows that reflected the actual light source and give the figures an impression of three-dimensionality.

Leonardo da Vinci came to Milan in 1482, and his writings manifest a respect for Bramante. The latter may have learned to appreciate the “central space” concept from Leonardo’s sketches of Greek-cross type churches. Both worked for the monks of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Leonardo painted The Last Supper and where, from 1492 to 1497, Bramante constructed a choir and transepts. The crossing of nave and transepts here is a spacious open square surmounted by a dome-on-pendentives spanning sixty-five feet. Outside, this interior dome appears as a sixteen-windowed cylinder or drum with sloping roof and a lantern. The crossing was planned as a crypt area for the ducal Sforza family of Milan, Bramante’s employers.

During these same years, Bramante designed, for Cardinal Sforza, Duke Ludovico’s brother, several cloisters for the Abbey of S. Ambrogio (1492-1497); some additions to the ducal palace at Vigevano, where he resided while in Milan at least until 1495; and a west facade for the abbey church at Abbiategrasso (1497). He also designed a partial city plan, whose main feature was a large square like that of S. Marco in Venice, but here serving as a court area between palace and cathedral. The work was interrupted by the French invasion of Milan in 1499, which relieved Bramante of several unfinished projects.

Also in 1499, Bramante arrived in a Rome electric with building activity in preparation for the coming jubilee year. The popes had even authorized the use of the Colosseum and other ancient monuments as stone quarries. Bramante received immediate employment to design a cloister for S. Maria della Pace, a two-storied arcade or loggia that on the ground level appears as a wall in which round arches have been cut. Its Ionic pilasters continue above, supporting a horizontal architrave. Between these, slender columns ride directly above the centers of the arches below, creating twice as many openings above as below.

Bramante’s famous Tempietto absorbed him in 1501-1502. As a sort of monumental reliquary built on the spot where Saint Peter was reputedly crucified, it had the round design and central plan customary for churches commemorating martyrdom. It is a two-storied drum of only fifteen feet in diameter, with a dome and a lantern. Around it is a Doric colonnade supporting a classical triglyph-metope architrave. Above, the drum is pierced by alternating windows and shell-topped niches. It achieves perfectly the avowed Renaissance aim to imitate the dignity of classical antiquity.

Appalled by the wholesale destruction of ancient Rome in the interests of Holy Year, Bramante campaigned for preservation of the past, or at least of an exact plan of imperial Rome. His first years there saw him devoted to drawings and three-dimensional projections of ancient monuments (his own new technique). His study of antiquity taught him much about Roman building secrets, most notably that of inserting brick ribs into walls before filling them with concrete. The new St. Peter’s, built on a scale many times greater than normal, would depend on this knowledge.

Bramante’s career in Rome (1500-1514) is closely tied to the regime of Pope Julius II (1503-1513). The architect rearranged the streets of Rome for this pope, receiving the nickname “Ruinante” because of his destruction of old streets and of so much of old St. Peter’s. Julius invited the congenial, well-read architect to accompany him on military campaigns so that they could enjoy evenings of Dante together. In 1504, Bramante designed the courtyard of St. Damasus with three levels of columned arcades, to ensure papal privacy.

In 1505, he won the competition to design and supervise the construction of the new St. Peter’s, to be the crowning glory of Christendom. Fund-raising for the project would destroy Christian unity. The fourth century Constantinian edifice was falling apart, and under Pope Nicholas V (1447-1455) a major restoration was begun. Julius decided on a complete reconstruction, the domed choir of which would contain his own massive tomb carved by Michelangelo with forty figures (the Moses is the masterpiece of a much-reduced monument in the church of St. Peter in Chains).

Bramante’s concept was a Greek-cross design with a gigantic central hemispheric dome flanked by four equal naves ending in apses. Each corner would have a chapel surmounted by smaller cupolas, and, farther out, four towers would give the building the form of a perfect square with the four apsidal projections. This original design can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, and in Caradosso’s official souvenir medal. Though finally altered into a Latin cross, the present basilica retains Bramante’s spirit and his entirely new massive scale. At his death, only the central piers for supporting the dome were in place. Significant but largely unnoticed is Bramante’s bedrock substructure for this colossal edifice. Remarkable, too, is his sculptural modeling of walls. This awareness of the “plastic potentiality” of a wall, also used by Filippo Brunelleschi, was late Roman in origin and important in subsequent Baroque development.

Nicholas V also began the refurbishment of the papal residence into the imposing Vatican palace. Bramante’s last important design (1514) was the Palazzo Caprini, planned as his own private residence. It is better known as the House of Raphael, since it was bought in 1517 by the painter.

Significance

Otto H. Förster, a Bramante scholar, has urged the theory that Bramante, and not Raphael, was the author of a 1510 treatise on the architecture of imperial Rome addressed to Julius II. It is full of confidence that the dome of St. Peter’s could rival that of the Pantheon, the scale of which Raphael and others found impossible to contemplate. In it the author is critical of the Palazzo della Cancellaria, a building often attributed incorrectly to Bramante. It is, in fact, difficult to verify Bramante’s part in many structures because of the damage and reconstructions of the centuries.

Despite his reputation for magnanimity, Bramante did not get on well with Michelangelo, who in a letter of 1542 voiced the suspicion that the older artist had enviously persuaded Julius to pull him away from the precious sculptural project for the great tomb in order to paint in the Sistine. Still, in a letter of 1555 the sculptor remarked, “Bramante was as gifted an architect as anyone from antiquity until now. . . . His plan for St. Peter’s was clear and pure, full of light. . . . Whoever departs from Bramante’s plan departs from the truth.” Thus, one may assert Bramante’s influence over Michelangelo the architect. Sebastiano Serlio imitated Bramante’s use of columns; Andrea Palladio’s S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice manifests Bramantean influence.

In 1517, Bramante was satirized as arriving at the Gates of Heaven and immediately proposing improvements. He would replace the difficult road to paradise by a spiral ramp so that Heaven could be attained on horseback, “and I would tear down this Paradise and build a new one with finer accommodations for the blessed. If you agree, I’ll stay; if not, I’ll head for Inferno.” Thus were perceived the confident assertiveness and integrity of Bramante at about the time of his death in 1514.

Bibliography

Baroni, Constantino, ed. Bramante. Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche, 1944. In Italian, a fifty-page biography. Useful for its 134 excellent black-and-white photographs.

Burckhardt, Jacob. The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Translated by James Palmes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Offers a useful organization into genres, but the book’s style is difficult. Excellent illustrations and bibliography.

Clarke, Georgia. Roman House Renaissance Palaces: Inventing Antiquity in Fifteenth-Century Italy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Examines the appropriation and reinterpretation of ancient Roman architecture by fifteenth century Italian architects and Humanists. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, index.

Durant, Will. The Renaissance. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953. Views Bramante in the context of Renaissance Italy. A very readable appreciation.

Förster, Otto H. Bramante. Vienna: A. Schroll, 1956. The best book on Bramante, in German. Useful for its numerous illustrations.

Hersey, George L. High Renaissance Art in St. Peter’s and the Vatican: An Interpretive Guide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Detailed study of the contributions of Bramante, Michelangelo, and Raphael to the art and architecture of the Vatican. Discusses the influence of political and religious intrigue on the development of the Vatican, as well as providing specific histories and interpretations of the artists’ works. Includes illustrations, bibliographic references, index.

Mayernik, David. Timeless Cities: An Architect’s Reflections on Renaissance Italy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. Written by an accomplished modern architect, this study of five Italian Renaissance cities discusses the philosophical importance of architecture and its role in realizing the ideals of Humanism. Includes illustrations, map, bibliographic references, index.

Pevsner, Nikolaus. An Outline of European Architecture. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963. A good survey of major architectural achievements and theory. Bramante is seen in a wider European perspective.

Rossiter, Stuart, ed. Rome and Environs. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1971. Thorough description of art and architecture in Rome for the scholarly traveler. Bramante’s buildings receive generous and detailed coverage. Identifies all buildings in which Bramante may have had some role.