Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante (1444-1514), the leading architect of the High Renaissance in Italy. He was born Donato di Pascussio d'Antonio in 1444, in Monte Andruvaldo, near Urbino, and was trained as a painter. His earliest recorded works are frescoes in the Palazzo del Podestà in Bergamo, executed in 1477. His architectural career began in Milan, where he settled in 1482. In his design for the Church of Santa Maria presso Santo Satiro (1488), he overcame the difficulties of an awkward site by using false perspective in the painted apse to create a feeling of depth—the first time this device had been used in architecture. His other works in Milan, such as the apse of Santa Maria delle Grazie (c. 1492-1495), show some influence of the classical ideals of the Florentine Renaissance but display more of a dependence on Byzantine prototypes, with their polygonal floor plans and mannered decorations.

With the fall of Duke Ludovico Sforza in 1499, Bramante left Milan and settled in Rome, where, until the end of his life, he was employed almost exclusively by the ambitious and extravagant Pope Julius II. In Rome, under the influence of Classical antiquity, his style became more monumental and less ornamented. His first major design in Rome, the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio (1502), is a circular, domed shrine loosely modelled on the Roman Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. With no surface decoration, it personifies the High Renaissance style, combining the Roman ideals of severitas (austerity) and dignitas (decorum) with Renaissance elegance and vitality.

His two greatest projects, which occupied his most creative years but which did not reach completion, were his plans for the rebuilding of St Peter's Church and the Vatican Palace. His design for St Peter's called for a large square building surmounted by a central dome, plus four smaller subsidiary domes and four towers. The piers and arches that were to support the dome were actually built, but before the structure could be finished, the design was radically altered by both Michelangelo and Carlo Maderno; St Peter's was completed by Maderno in its present form of a longitudinal, rectangular basilica. Bramante's plan for additions to the Vatican Palace, on a 275-m (900-ft) sloping site, consisted of three successive courts surmounted by grandiose tiered landings. The plan was notable for its innovative axial arrangement and for its wonderful spaciousness, but it was never fully executed, and later additions completely spoiled its proportions.

Bramante stands with Michelangelo and Raphael as one of the artistic giants of the High Renaissance in Italy. Successfully fusing the ideals of Classical antiquity with those of Christian inspiration, his sculptural, expressive grandeur paved the way for the more elaborate Baroque style of the next century. He died in Rome on March 11 or April 11, 1514.