The Tempietto

The so-called Tempietto (Italian: "small temple") is a small commemorative tomb (martyrium) built
by Donato Bramante, possibly as early as 1502, in the courtyard of San Pietro in Montorio. Also
commissioned by Ferdinand and Isabella, the Tempietto is considered a masterpiece of High
RenaissanceItalian architecture.
After spending his first years in Milan, Bramante moved to Rome, where he was recognized by
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the soon-to-be Pope Julius II. In Rome, Bramante, was able to study
the ancient monuments first hand. The temple of Vesta at Tivoli was one of the precedents behind the
Tempietto. Other antique precedents Bramante was able to study in Rome include the circular temple
of the banks of the Tiber, believed to be a temple of Vesta. However, the centrally planned church
was employed by early Christians for martyriums, an example being Santa Constanza, also in Rome.
Bramante would have been aware of these early Christian precedents, and as a result, the Tempietto
is circular.
The "Tempietto" is one of the most harmonious buildings of the Renaissance. It is the earliest
example of use of the Tuscan order in the Renaissance. Tuscan is a form of the Doric order which
stated by Vitruvius is the relationship between the Order and the nature of the divinity to whom the
temple is dedicated to. A Doric order is well suited for strong male gods (such as Hercules) so Tuscan
was well suited for St. Peter. It is meant to mark the traditional exact spot of St. Peter's martyrdom,
and is an important precursor to Bramantes rebuilding of St. Peters.
Given all the transformations of Renaissance and Baroque Rome that were to follow, it is hard now to
sense the impact this building had at the beginning of the 16th century. It is almost a piece of
sculpture, for it has little architectonic use. The building greatly reflected Brunelleschi's style. Perfectly
proportioned, it is composed of slender Tuscan columns, a Doric entablature modeled after the
ancient Theater of Marcellus, and a dome. According to an engraving in Sebastiano Serlio's Book III,
Bramante planned to set it in within a colonnaded courtyard, but this plan was never executed.

Bramante
Donato Bramante, (14441514), was born in Urbino and turned from painting to architecture, finding
his first important patronage under Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, for whom he produced a number
of buildings over 20 years. After the fall of Milan to the French in 1499, Bramante travelled to Rome
[5]
where he achieved great success under papal patronage.
Bramantes finest architectural achievement in Milan is his addition of crossing and choir to the abbey
church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan). This is a brick structure, the form of which owes much to
the Northern Italian tradition of square domed baptisteries. The new building is almost centrally
planned, except that, because of the site, the chancel extends further than the transept arms. The
hemispherical dome, of approximately 20 metres across, rises up hidden inside an
octagonal drum pierced at the upper level with arched classical openings. The whole exterior has
delineated details decorated with the local terracotta ornamentation.
In Rome Bramante created what has been described as "a perfect architectural
[3]
gem", the Tempietto in the Cloister of San Pietro in Montorio. This small circular temple marks the
spot where St Peter was martyred and is thus the most sacred site in Rome. The building adapts the
style apparent in the remains of the Temple of Vesta, the most sacred site of Ancient Rome. It is
enclosed by and in spatial contrast with the cloister which surrounds it. As approached from the
cloister, as in the picture above, it is seen framed by an arch and columns, the shape of which are
echoed in its free-standing form.

Bramante went on to work at the Vatican where he designed the impressive Cortili of St. Damaso and
of the Belvedere. In 1506 Bramantes design forPope Julius IIs rebuilding of St. Peters Basilica was
selected, and the foundation stone laid. After Bramantes death and many changes of
plan, Michelangelo, as chief architect, reverted to something closer to Bramantes original proposal.

"The Tempietto in the cloister of San Pietro in Montorio was built by Bramanate
after 1502, on the commission of the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and
Isabella of Castile. The emphasis here is on the harmony of proportions, the
simplicity of volumes (cylinder, hemisphere) and the sobriety of the Doric Order.
The circular plan symbolizes divine perfection. Inspired by ancient temples, the
Tempietto is both a homage to antiquity and a Christian memorial."
Mitchell Beazley. The World Atlas of Architecture. p276.
"For Bramante, the planning of the Tempietto must have represented the union of
illusionistic painting and architecture he had spent his career perfecting. The
building, too small on the inside to accommodate a congregation (only 15 feet in
diameter), was conceived as a 'picture' to be looked at from outside, a 'marker', a
symbol of Saint Peter's martyrdom."
Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to
Post-Modernism. p302.
The "Tempietto" or little temple is a martyria that is, it marks the traditional site of Saint Peter's
crucifixion (his martyrdom). It is perhaps the most perfect expression of Renaissance Italy's
conception of classical harmony and order.
The basilica, which has a long axis that focuses attention on the altar, has been the most popular type
of church plan. The other common plan is the central plan, usually based either on a circle (as here in
the Tempietto), or on a Greek cross (a cross with equal arms). Both plans derive from ancient pagan
architecture. The central plan was influenced by ancient Roman architecture such as the Pantheon,
and was very popular among High Renaissance architects. The circle may have also had spiritual
associations. The circle, which has no beginning and no end, can symbolize the perfection and eternal
nature of God. For some thinkers in Antiquity and the Renaissance, the universe itself was
constructed in the form of concentric circles with the sun, moon and stars moving in circular orbits
around the earth.
Donato Bramante (1444 11 March 1514) was an Italian architect, who introduced Renaissance
architecture to Milan and the High Renaissancestyle to Rome, where his plan for St. Peter's
Basilica formed the basis of design executed by Michelangelo. His Tempietto (San Pietro in Montorio)
marked the beginning of the High Renaissance in Rome (1502) when Alexander VI appointed him to
build a sanctuary that allegedly marked the spot where Peter was crucified.

Urbino and Milan[edit]

Bramante was born under the name Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio, in Fermignano near Urbino: here,
in 1467 Luciano Laurana was adding to thePalazzo Ducale an arcaded courtyard and other
Renaissance features to Federico da Montefeltro's ducal palace.

Bramante's architecture has eclipsed his painting skills: he knew the painters Melozzo da
Forl and Piero della Francesca well, who were interested in the rules of perspective and illusionistic
features in Mantegna's painting. Around 1474, Bramante moved to Milan, a city with a deep Gothic
architectural tradition, and built several churches in the new Antique style. The Duke, Ludovico
Sforza, made him virtually his court architect, beginning in 1476, with commissions that culminated in
the famous trompe-l'oeil choir of the church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro (14821486). Space
was limited, and Bramante made a theatrical apse in bas-relief, combining the painterly arts of
perspective with Roman details. There is an octagonal sacristy, surmounted by a dome.
In Milan, Bramante also built the tribune of Santa Maria delle Grazie (149299); other early works
include the Cloisters of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan (14971498), and some other constructions
in Pavia and possibly Legnano. However, in 1499, with his Sforza patron driven from Milan by an
invading French army, Bramante made his way to Rome, where he was already known to the
powerful Cardinal Riario.

Rome[edit]
In Rome, he was soon recognized by Cardinal Della Rovere, shortly to become Pope Julius II. For
Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile or possibly Julius II, Bramante designed one of the most
harmonious buildings of the Renaissance: the Tempietto (1510) of San Pietro in Montorio on
the Janiculum. Despite its small scale, the construction has all the rigorous proportions and symmetry
of Classical structures, surrounded by slender Doric columns, surmounted by a dome. According to a
later engraving by Sebastiano Serlio, Bramante planned to set it within a colonnaded courtyard. In
November 1503, Julius engaged Bramante for the construction of the grandest European architectural
commission of the 16th century, the complete rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica. The cornerstone of the
first of the great piers of the crossing was laid with ceremony on 17 April 1506. Very few drawings by
Bramante survive, though some by his assistants do, demonstrating the extent of the team which had
been assembled. Bramante's vision for St Peter's, a centralized Greek cross plan that symbolized
sublime perfection for him and his generation (compare Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi,
influenced by Bramante's work) was fundamentally altered by the extension of the nave after his
death in 1514. 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.
So Bramante's original plan was very much more Romano-Byzantine in its forms than the basilica that
was actually built. (See St Peter's Basilica for further details.)
Bramante also worked on several other commissions. Among his earliest works in Rome, before the
Basilica's construction was under way, is the cloister (15001504) of Santa Maria della
Pace near Piazza Navona. The handsome proportions give an air of great simplicity.

Donato Bramante, Donato also spelled Donino or Donnino (born c. 1444, probably at Monte
Asdrualdo, Duchy of Urbino[Italy]died April 11, 1514, Rome), architect who introduced the High
Renaissance style in architecture. His early works in Milan included the rectory of SantAmbrogio
and the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. In Rome, Bramante served as principal planner of
Pope Julius IIs comprehensive project for rebuilding the city. St. Peters Basilica, of which he
was the chief architect, was begun in 1506. Other major Roman works were the Tempietto at
San Pietro in Montorio (1502) and the Belvedere court in the Vatican (begun c. 1505).

Early years and training

Donato Bramante was born of a family of well-to-do farmers. In his childhood, says the 16thcentury biographer and artist Giorgio Vasari, besides reading and writing, he practiced much at
the abacus. His father probably directed him toward painting.
Little is known of Bramantes life and works before 1477. He probably served as an assistant
to Piero della Francesca in Urbino, which, under the nobleman Federico da Montefeltro (died
1482), had become a humanist centre of considerable importance. In 1477 Bramante was
working in Bergamo as a painter of illusionistic murals of architecture. He probably derived his
training not only from the works of artists active in Urbino but also from those of other artists he
may have observed in his travels, such as those of Leon Battista Alberti (in Rimini and
Mantua), Andrea Mantegna (in Mantua and Padua), Ercole deRoberti (in Ferrara), and Filippo
Brunelleschi (in Florence).
None of Bramantes youthful productions has survived, though some historians attribute various
architectural perspectives to him. Almost all of them show some characteristics of Bramantes
work, but they appear very different from each other. Before 1477 Bramante may have been
primarily a planner, designer, and painter of architectural perspectives that other artists partly
modified and inserted into their own paintings or carried out in construction; there are a number
of later instances in which he is known to have furnished painters with such architectural
perspectives.

Lombard period
By 1477 Bramante had left Urbino for unknown reasons and settled in the northern Italian
province of Lombardy. He worked on frescoes for the facade of the Palazzo del Podest (later
altered) in Bergamo showing Classical figures of philosophers in a complex architectural setting.
Vasari (though poorly informed on this period) says that Bramante, after working in various cities
on things of no great cost and little value, went to Milan to see the cathedral. The cathedral
workshop, in which Italian, German, and French craftsmen worked by turns, constituted an
important centre for the exchange of knowledge, planning methods, and techniques. Moreover,
Milan was a large and wealthy metropolis, the capital of a state ruled by Ludovico Sforza, called
Il Moro, and Renaissancearchitecture was a commodity to be imported. Thus the city
represented an opportunity for a young and up-to-date architect like Bramante.

Roman period
Bramante probably remained in Milan until Ludovico was forced to flee before the city was
occupied by the French in September 1499. Bramante appears to have been active from the first
in Rome on a variety of projects, such as a painting (now lost) at San Giovanni in Laterano
celebrating the Holy Year 1500. As under-architect of Pope Alexander VI, he probably executed
the fountains in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and in St. Peters Square (later altered) and
served on several architectural councils. It is probable that in these years he had reduced his
activity as a designer and was devoting himself to the study of the ancient monuments in and
around Rome, even ranging as far south as Naples. In the meantime, he had come in contact
with Oliviero Carafa, the wealthy and politically influential cardinal of Naples, who had a deep
interest in letters, the arts, and antiquity. Carafa commissioned the first work in Rome known to

be by Bramante: the monastery and cloister ofSanta Maria della Pace (finished 1504). Bramante
seems to have been engaged in 1502 to begin the small church known as the Tempietto in San
Pietro in Montorio, on the site where St. Peter was said to have been crucified.

Personality and interests

Even though he was called unlettered (as were Leonardo, Julius II, and others), probably
because he was ignorant of Latin and Greek, Bramante must have acquired considerable
learning, however fragmentary. His contemporaries esteemed him not only as an architect and
painter and for his knowledge of perspective but also as a poet and an amateur musician. He
had an almost fanatical interest in Dante. He also wrote some 20 sonnets on amorous,
humorous, and religious themes, and, though somewhat crude in style, they are full of spirit.
His theoretical writings, apart from his report on the tiburio of the Milan cathedral, have all been
lost, but their subjects are indicative of his interests; e.g., works on perspective, on the German
manner (i.e., on Gothic architecture), on fortification methods, and others.
Bramante seems to have been an extravert. He was said to be very friendly to persons with
talent, and he did much to help them. Humour, irony, a taste for intelligent jokes, and mockery of
himself as well as others often appear in his sonnets. Full of faith in himself, he was an irreverent
person who took pleasure in proposing paradoxical ideas. He was critical of priests and courtiers
but also capable of deep religious feeling. In the treacherous atmosphere of courts, he was able
to maneuver skillfully. He must have been highly ambitious and not overscrupulous when it came
to securing an important commission. His biographers emphasize his impatience and speed in
the conception and conduct of his work (Vasari calls him a resolute, rapid, and excellent
inventor). This quality was combined with imaginative genius and an artful and lively curiosity.
His insatiable thirst for experiment and for new knowledge forced him, as Bramante himself
remarks in one of his sonnets, to change himself continually (as time changes in a moment /
my thought, its follower, changes too). This trait of instability and inconstancy seems to have led
him away from convention in his works to a multiplicity of attitudes and expressions.