BRAMANTE or BRAMANTE LAZZARI (c. 1514), Italian architect and painter, whose real name was Donato d'Agnolo, was born at Monte-Asdrualdo in Urbino. He studied painting probably under Mantegna or Piero della Francesca and in Milan came under the influence of Vincenzo Foppa. He appears to have studied architecture under Luciano da Laurano who was made chief architect at Urbino in 1468. He visited several of the towns of Lombardy, executing works of various degrees of importance. He remained in Milan from 1476 to 1499 and seems to have left for Rome about 150o. About this time the Cardinal Caraffa commissioned him to rebuild the cloister of the Convent della Pace and introduced him to Pope Alexander VI. He began to be consulted on nearly all the great architectural operations in Rome, and executed for the pope the palace of the Cancelleria or chancery. Under Julius II. Bramante's first large work was to unite the straggling buildings of the palace and the Belvedere by means of two long galleries or corridors enclosing a court. Unfortunately the foundations were not well laid, and the whole is now so much altered that it is hardly possible to distinguish the original design.
Besides executing numerous smaller works at Rome and Bo logna, among which is a round temple in the cloister of San Pietro-a-Montorio, Bramante was called upon by Pope Julius to begin the rebuilding of St. Peter's. Bramante's designs were com pleted, and before his death he had erected the four great piers and their arches and finished the cornice and the vaulting of this portion; he also vaulted in the principal chapel. He had, there fore, laid down the main lines of the building. After his death on March i 1, 1514, his design was much altered, in particular by Michelangelo.