Bramantino

Bartolomeo Suardi (c. 1456 – c. 1530)¹ was an Italian painter and architect, mainly active in his native Milan.

Biography

He was born in Milan, the son of Alberto Suardi, but his biography remains unclear, and was long complicated by two "Pseudo-Bramantinos". He was trained by Donato Bramante, adopting a diminutive form of his master's name. This training gave him influences from by the Urbino quattrocento tradition of immobile realism, and later he assimilated some elements of the style of Leonardo, after he arrived in Milan, although in other respects he remained faithful to his training in the style of Central Italy.

He is documented in late 1508 as helping in the decoration of the Vatican Stanze though nothing remains of his work there, and by 1509 he was back in Milan. His style changed considerably during his career, and also shows strongly individual traits. His main influences were the serene and sometimes unnatural quietist classicism of Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, and Ercole de' Roberti, but his works also display a sometimes disquieting immobile expressiveness comparable only to the last of these three.

He acted as an architect and advisor on the reconstruction of the Duomo of Milan in the years before his death.²

The "Pseudo-Bramantinos"

There is a mention of a Bramantino da Milano by Vasari in his biographies of Piero della Francesca, Il Garofalo, Girolamo da Carpi, and Jacopo Sansovino. The Bramantino of Vasari, if he existed at all, worked for Pope Nicholas V between 1450 and 1455.³ If so, then he worked prior to the cited works of Bartolomeo Suardi.