The architect Bramante largely influenced the development of the Lombard Renaissance. Guided and historical tour of these greatest masterpieces.

The city of Milan owes its name, mediolanum (middle country), to the Celts who founded it in the 5th century BC. Conquered by the Romans in 222 BC, it has continued to play a leading commercial role since then and has sparked envy in France, the German Empire and Spain. The city was built in the middle of the Po Valley.
But it was in the 15th century that the Duchy of Milan reached its cultural and artistic peak with Ludovico Sforza (1494-1499) and that great geniuses such as Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci passed through his court. In fact, in the 15th century, the change of dynasty between the Visconti and the Sforza marks the transition between late Gothic and the new model of the humanist Renaissance.

If we speak of Donato “Donnino” di Angelo di Pascuccio dit Bramante, it is essentially as an architect although he felt many other strings to his bow: painter, engraver, musician, poet. He was born in 1444 in Fermignano near the City of Urbino in what is now the Marche region and died in 1514 in Rome. Trained in Urbino, which was one of the main poles of 15th century Italian culture; Bramante was first active in Milan, influencing the development of the Lombard Renaissance, then in Rome where he carried out the project for Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Gardens.
It was in Milan that the Master developed a prestigious artistic school, with which, thanks to the patronage of Ludovic le Moor, he could come into contact with masters from other cities in Italy.

Bramante, inventor of good light

As an architect he is the most important figure of his time, considered the inventor of good light and real architecture.
His first stay in Milan dates back to 1478. His first commissions as an architect date back to 1479 when he was in the service of Ludovic Sforza. He gives the church to Santa Maria delle Grazie its elegant dome, its gallery and its cloister at the same time as Leonardo da Vinci painted the fresco of the Last Supper in the refectory.

Bramante moved to Milan as a painter and remained there until 1499 working as an architect, acquiring mastery of perspective, as evidenced by the impressive trompe l’oeil sacristy of the church. Santa Maria presso San Satiro in the heart of Milan (via Turin). His informed cultural background, among others with Piero della Francesca, allows him to exercise great influence and authority over Lombard culture at the same time as that of Leonardo da Vinci, present in Milan since 1482 and with whom he exchanges a lot.

Between 1486 and 1487, Bramante painted a cycle of frescoes of which fragments remain for the Casa Panigarola today The Pinacoteca de Brera In Milan.

Works can be admired: Christ at the Column in the abbey of Chiaravalle and the Argo fresco in the treasure room of the Sforza Castle and the fresco of larger-than-life men-at-arms standing in niches; and bust portraits of Democritus and Heraclitus separated by a globe in the Gaspare Visconti house.

In 1487, Bramante participated like Leonardo da Vinci in the competition for the lantern tower of the cathedral of Milan, he writes on this occasion a report on the subject as under the name ofopinio super Domicilium seu templum magnum. It is the only document of theoretical architecture of Bramante which is preserved.

During this period in Milan, Bramante exercised his passion for literature in the midst of the Duke’s court. He is applauded and recognized as a musician and poet “he was of a great profundity in verse”. He writes a collection of 25 sonnets which capture love.

Milan, contemporary architecture laboratory

Currently Milan is transforming its circumference and the height of its buildings. The Lombard capital is the most important laboratory of contemporary architecture. An ever-increasing number of skyscrapers are the innovation in its diversity, like the two green towers named Bosco Vertical, which combine with stone 700 trees and 5,000 shrubs and plants of all kinds. To this feat are erected other buildings as important in size as the Visit of Solaria which rises to 143 meters, but it is the Unicredit tour of 231 meters which by its vertiginous height makes a nod to the Duomo.
A technological gigantism that would undoubtedly have stunned the geniuses of the Renaissance!