“‘Senza rinnegare il suo molto significativo soprannome’. L’esempio di Bramante architetto nella pittura di Bramantino”

Based on documents, it can not be established with precision when Bartolomeo Suardi met for the first time Bramante. However, it is likely that the two artists met in the early eighties of the fifteenth century in Bergamo, when they were both working within the artistic scene of goldsmiths. From Bergamo they moved to Milan to work on the construction of Santa Maria presso San Satiro and it is precisely here that, in a document that dates 1489, we see appearing for the first time the nickname of «Magistro Bertholameo Brabantino depinctore». Hence, it appears that the fame surrounding Bartolomeo Suardi and his peculiar nickname mentioned, was mostly related and deeply connected from the very beginning to the person of Donato Bramante. The purpose of this essay is double. On the one hand we evaluated the relation between Bramante and Bramantino through some interesting analogies such as the examination of specific architectonic details within the first pictorial works of Bramantino. These architectonic details seem to refer directly to those canons and examples that Bramante was in that time revealing to the artistic scene of Milano. On the other hand, and as a conclusion, we analyzed in a more comprehensive way the term ‘bramantismo’, an expression often used by the artistic literature as an automatic interpretation to analyze the works of those artists who were at that time gravitating around the master from Urbino who chose Milano as his privileged place of activity