Bramante, Donato (1444–1514)
Bramante was one of the first of the great High Renaissance
architects, influencing numerous
prominent architects of Rome
such as Peruzzi and Sangallo. He is best known for reviving the architecture
of classical antiquity, which had begun with the works of
Alberti (Allsopp, 1959). Vasari
reported that Bramante spent much of his time studying and
sketching the buildings in Rome
(Vasari, 1907).
Born Donato di Angelo di Anthonio da Urbino/Pascuccio, it is
speculated that he studied with
Piero della Francesca and/or Andrea Mantegna. His first notable
building was S. Maria Presso S.
Satiro in Milan .
In Rome , some
of Bramante’s
most celebrated and influential projects were for
Pope Julius at the Vatican , where he designed the
Cortile di S. Damaso and the Cortile del
Belvedere. With an interest in centrally planned churches
similar to Leonardo, he also designed a
Greek cross plan for St. Peter’s with a vast central dome. His
expressive building of the classical tradition
was the Tempietto of S. Pietro in Montorio, 1502.
Bramante’s design for the Tempietto was sited in the courtyard of the
Church and Monastery of
San Pietro in Montorio. It constitutes a diminutive temple acting
as a Martyria, standing on the place
presumed to be St. Peter’s Martyrdom. Small and circular, it revisits antique forms
appealing to contemporary
Christians’ preferences, crowned with a hemispherical dome resembling the
Pantheon.
This small monument displays simple proportions where the width
of the dome is equal to the height
of the interior cylinder (Allsopp, 1959).
This sketch on the facing page (Figure 1.1) exhibits a small shrine-like
structure, representing an
example of a centrally planned building. The sketch reads as an
elevation of an octagon-shaped
dome on a raised foundation. In plan, the building presented
appears to be shaped in the form of a
cross with small projections containing porches; it is vaguely
reminiscent of Palladio’s Villa Rotunda.
Bramante’s concern with the reference to a shrine led him to draw this
sketch demonstrating its volume
from the exterior, rather than interior space. Here, he used the
porch to accent the central
domed space, stressing the qualities of a monument, a temple
from antiquity.
The building’s organization describes an octagon within a Greek cross imposed
within a square,
but the sketch presents an image somewhere between a perspective
and an elevation, as the face of
the porch has been drawn slightly taller than the side porches.
To stress the central altar and promote
a three-dimensional effect, Bramante employs shading on the side
of the octagon, further confusing
the flat façade of the elevation. The sculptural figures on the roof have
been drawn with the same lack
of complexity as the scale figures standing on the stairs.
Although the sketch does not appear to be
hurried, Bramante describes the stairs with minimal detail. The
set on the left display some definition,
while the other set of stairs have been represented simply by
double diagonal lines. This technique
concentrates the focus to the center, and emphasizes the fact
that the building was designed to
be viewed equally well from all angles.
The sketch suggests a self-reflexivity, as it refers to the many
centrally planned structures designed
by Bramante. It also recalls the three-dimensional/volumetric
qualities of Bramante’s concern for a
building’s mass. The architectural historian James Ackerman wrote about
the volume of Bramante’s
walls: ‘[W]e sense that where the earlier architect drew buildings,
Bramante modelled them’ (1961,
p. 27). Although this design for a small building may not be directly
related to the Tempietto, it is representative
of a theme, one that Bramante explored throughout his career.
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