BRAMANTINO (Bartolomeo Suardi). — Milanese painter and architect. The year of his birth is unknown; documents show that in 1503 he was consulted on the construction of Milan Cathedral, in 1508 he was in Rome to execute paintings in the Vatican, in 1508 he was again in Milan where he designed the Trivulzio Chapel at S. Nazaro (of which he directed the construction at least until 1520), in 1513 he painted an altarpiece for the Cistercians at Chiaravalle to be sent to S. Saba in Rome, in 1525 he was appointed court architect and painter; he died around 1536.
Initially closer to the old tradition of Foppa and Butinone and to the nervous, incisive manner of Mantegna and the Ferrarese painters, he later drew from Bramante (very probably his pupil, as the nickname B. seems to indicate) and, through him, from Piero della Francesca, adopting a taste for perspectival achievements and the monumentality of composition. He gave new impetus to 16th-century Lombard painting, managing to assert his own original personality despite the spread of Leonardo’s influence.
The chronology of his works is much debated; certainly early are the Nativity in the Ambrosiana in Milan and the Ecce Homo in the Casa Soranas, where environment and images are fantastically distorted and the harsh, severe line has a singular constructive force. Slightly later, perhaps after his Roman sojourn—which undoubtedly had a strong influence on the artist—are the Legend of Philemon and Baucis in the Cologne Museum and the Adoration of the Magi in the National Gallery in London, more solemn and monumental in their arrangement; close to these is the remarkable ceiling of the Carafa Chapel in Naples, executed in 1511, where perspectival skill never yields to virtuosity or decoration but, through foreshortenings, achieves values of tension and impetus. Later, his search for monumentality led B. to inflate his forms, to weigh down the drapery at the expense of earlier movement and vigour; the line shifts from incisive to softened and vaporous, and strong chiaroscuro contrasts give way to a more diffused luminosity. Examples of this manner are the Holy Family in the Brera Gallery, the Triptych in the Ambrosiana, and Lucretia in the Sola-Busca Collection.
Architectural constructions frequently appear in the fantastic backgrounds of his paintings, but the only documented architectural work is the Trivulzio Chapel at S. Nazaro; devoid of any ornamental detail and thus distant from the decorative tradition of Lombard architecture, it shows Bramante’s influence in its taste for geometric rigour, enlivened however by a perceptible vertical thrust, especially inside. He has also been attributed the hypogeum of S. Maria della Fontana (Mezzanotte) and the old sacristy of S. Maria delle Grazie (Gengaro).