Bramante

Bramante, DONATO, architect, was born near Urbino in 1444. From 1472 to 1499 he resided in Milan, where he studied geometry and perspective, neither of which sciences was well understood by artists in his day. He was noted as one of the best painters in Lombardy; but his success in architecture eclipsed his fame as a painter. After the fall of Ludovico Sforza, Bramante went to Rome, where he was first employed by Pope Alexander VI., and afterwards by Julius II. The first great work which he undertook for the latter was to connect the Vatican palace with the two pavilions of the Belvedere by a series of immense galleries; the second was the rebuilding of St Peter's Church, of which he laid the new foundation in 1506. When only a small portion of his plans had been realised, Bramante died at Rome, 11th March 1514, and succeeding architects departed widely from the original design of a grand cupola over a Greek cross. Among other works of Bramante in Rome may be mentioned the Cancellaria and Torlonia palaces, in which he adhered more strictly than in other works to antique forms, but not without a characteristic grace in his application of these.