10 Facts About Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante, born as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio and known as Bramante Lazzari, was an Italian architect and painter.

Donato Bramante introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance style to Rome, where his plan for St Peter's Basilica formed the basis of design executed by Michelangelo.

Donato Bramante's Tempietto marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Rome when Pope Julius II appointed him to build a sanctuary over the spot where Peter was martyred.

Donato Bramante's architecture has eclipsed his painting skills: he knew the painters Melozzo da Forli and Piero della Francesca well, who were interested in the rules of perspective and illusionistic features in Andrea Mantegna's painting.

Around 1474, Donato Bramante moved to Milan, a city with a deep Gothic architectural tradition, and built several churches in the new Antique style.

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Space was limited, and Donato Bramante made a theatrical apse in bas-relief, combining the painterly arts of perspective with Roman details.

In Milan, Donato Bramante built the tribune of Santa Maria delle Grazie ; other early works include the Cloisters of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan, and some other constructions in Pavia and possibly Legnano.

However, in 1499, with his Sforza patron driven from Milan by an invading French army, Donato Bramante made his way to Rome, where he was already known to the powerful Cardinal Riario.

For Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile or possibly Julius II, Donato Bramante designed one of the most harmonious buildings of the Renaissance: the Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio on the Janiculum.

Donato Bramante's plan envisaged four great chapels filling the corner spaces between the equal transepts, each one capped with a smaller dome surrounding the great dome over the crossing.