Donato Bramante

Timeline

1. 1444–1476Urbino · UrbinoHe grew up in the Duchy of Urbino, first active as a painter, absorbing Piero della Francesca's spatial perspective and the elegant proportions of court architecture in the line of Luciano Laurana, laying the foundation for later translating the centralized space of painting into architecture. Around the mid-1470s he moved north to Milan.
2. c. 1476–1499Milan · MilanUnder Ludovico Sforza he was a contemporary of Leonardo. Because the site of Santa Maria presso San Satiro was cramped, he created the illusion of a deep choir with perspective frescoes; he also directed the choir of Santa Maria delle Grazie and works related to the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio. After the French occupation of Milan in 1499, he left Lombardy for Rome.
3. 1499–1514Rome · RomeAround 1502, commissioned by the Spanish monarchs, he built the circular Tempietto in the courtyard of the monastery of San Pietro in Montorio, reinterpreting classical monumentality with a Doric colonnade and dome, often regarded as the beginning of High Renaissance architecture in Rome. Julius II appointed him to plan the new St. Peter's Basilica; the massive piers of the crossing were laid in April 1506; he also designed the Belvedere courtyard of the Vatican. When he died in 1514, only part of the piers of the centralized Greek-cross scheme had been completed; it was later revised by Raphael, Michelangelo, and others.