The Italian architect and painter Donato Bramante (1444-1514) was the first High Renaissance architect. He transformed the classical style of the 15th century into a grave and monumental manner, which represented the ideal for later architects.

In the first decade of the 16th century Donato Bramante was the chief architect in Rome, which had just replaced Florence as the artistic capital of Europe because the patronage of Pope Julius II (reigned 1503-1513) attracted all the leading Italian artists to that city. It is particularly the triumvirate of artists--Michelangelo the sculptor and painter, Raphael the painter, and Bramante the architect--who dominated this period, usually called the High Renaissance, and whose influence overwhelmed the following generations.

Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio, called Bramante, was born in 1444 at Monte Asdruvaldo near Urbino. Nothing is known of the first 30 years of his life. During that period, however, the court of Federigo da Montefeltro...