ENGLISH VERSION Bramante. Sonetti ed altri scritti. A cura di Carlo Vecce. Roma, Salerno editore, 1995

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Donato Bramante 
Sonetti ed altri scritti [Sonnets and other writings]
Edited by Carlo Vecce

Roma, Salerno publishers, 1995

Bramante. The court of the Basilica of St. Ambrose, Milan (1492-1499)

About Carlo Vecce see in this blog: Claire Farago, Janis Bell, Carlo Vecce, The Fabrication of Leonardo da Vinci’s Trattato della pittura, with a scholarly edition of the editio princeps (1651) and an annotated English translation, With a foreword by Martin Kemp and additional contributions by Juliana Barone, Matthew Landrus, Maria Rascaglia, Anna Sconza, Mario Valentino Guffanti. Two volumes. Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2018. Part One, Two, Three, Four and Five; Carlo Vecce, The Lost Library - Leonardo's Books, Rome, Salerno editrice, 2017; Donato Bramante, Sonnets and other writings, edited by Carlo Vecce.

[1] Hereby are published all 25 sonnets by Bramante. Twenty-three are taken from the Manuscript Ms. Italien 1543 of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; one comes from Manuscript Sessoriano 413 (2077) of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Rome; the last is derived from the Trattato dell’arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura (Treaty of the art of painting, architecture et sculpture) by Lomazzo, who reproduced it without finding, however, a lot of listening among scholars. In the edition of the writings by Lomazzo due to R.P. Ciardi, these verses appear on p. 245 of the second volume.

[2] In addition to the sonnets, Vecce presents the Opinio by Bramante on the lantern of the Milan Cathedral, according to the text provided by Arnoldo Bruschi in Scritti rinascimentali d’Architettura (Renaissance Writings on Architecture) published by Polifilo publishers in 1978.

[3] There is, finally, the so-called “Crévola report”, a brief statement placed here on p. 64. The script "in itself, is of small importance, and has no other significance but to be the only remaining original document by Bramante" (p. 107).

Bramante. Cloister of Santa Maria della Pace, Rome (1500-1504)

[4] On the Sunday insert of the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore, on 21 May 1995, a large space was dedicated to the work, on the eve of its publication. Marco Carminati wrote a presentation of the book, which, by permission of the publisher, was followed by a large excerpt of the introduction of Vecce. Below are displayed both texts, taken from Biblioteca Multimediale del Sole 24 ORE – Cd Rom Domenica 1983-2003 Vent’anni di idee. (Multimedia Library of Il Sole 24 Ore - Cd Rom Sunday 1983-2003 Twenty years of ideas).

SUNDAY

Those socks of mine

by Marco Carminati

Donato di Angelo di Antonio di Renzo da Farneta, aka "Bramante", was one of the most representative architects and painters of the early Italian Renaissance. A native of a small village near Urbino (we are around 1444), the young Donato had been educated at the Montefeltro court in Urbino on the texts and examples of Leon Battista Alberti, Piero della Francesca, Luca Pacioli, Luciano Laurana and Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Vasari tells us that as a child the future artist was a kind of “teacher’s pet pupil”, loving "reading and writing" more than toys and exercising obsessively "with the abacus". Obvious consequence of all this effort at school, was that Donato could never call himself, like Leonardo did, a "man without letters"; indeed, once arrived at the court of Moro in Milan around 1480, he proved to know how to skilfully juggle with the art of rhyming, composing sonnets “allo improvviso” (improvising on the spot), languid lyrics inspired by the style of Petrarch, and hilarious burlesque poems dedicated to dice, riddled socks and other such amenities. Only twenty-five sonnets by Bramante survived the sieve of history. With them it is also saved the famous report to the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo [note of the translator: the “Venerable Factory of the Duomo of Milan”, the administration in charge of building-up the Cathedral] regarding the lantern for the cathedral (it is the famous Bramanti opinio super domicilium seu templum magnum – Bramante’s Opinion on the Cathedral) and another brief report provided to Ludovico il Moro on certain fortifications near Domodossola. All what is left of the literary work of Bramante has now been brought together in an elegant little book published by Salerno Editrice in Rome (Donato Bramante, Sonetti e altri scritti, Sonnets and other writings, 1995 pp. 122, 13.000 Italian lire– around 7 euros) by Carlo Vecce, a young philologist of the Milanese school of Giuseppe Billanovich, now a researcher at the Professorship on Italian literature at the University of Macerata. Vecce’s merit was first to recover and frame historically and critically the whole canzoniere [translator of the editor: literally, "songbook"; it means here collection of short poems] by Bramante, whose last edition dates back to 1884 and was directed by Luca Beltrami. The reading of these poems of love and joke certainly helps shedding some light on the artist's personality, on his proverbial "playful" character, and on the friends among the poets attending the court of the Moro, especially Gasparo Visconti. A sonnet - the first of the collection - is even dedicated to a trip actually made by Donato from Liguria to Pavia. The figure of a stark and uncompromising architect (and even a little jealous of the success of others) emerges from a reading of the most famous Opinio by Bramante on the lantern of the Cathedral, in which Bramante, examining the wooden models presented by other colleagues, provides to all (Amadeo included) a storm of criticism, and offers his view of things, proposing a lantern on a square plan. By courtesy of the editor and publisher, we decided to offer our readers a preview of a large excerpt of the introduction of Carlo Vecce to the "canzoniere” by Bramante. In addition, besides you can "try out" one of Bramante's burlesque sonnets, dedicated ... to a sock full of holes. In it, the author describes the disastrous condition of the sock bestowed by Gasparo Visconti, with interplay of paradoxical comparisons that come to compare the riddled sock with the tracery of the Cathedral’s windows. Moral of the sonnet? Make sure somebody will donate another pair of new socks to you.

Bramante. 'Tempietto' of San Pietro in Montorio, Rome (1502)

SUNDAY – Rhymes of an artist

Imminent Exit of the First Modern Edition of Poetic and Theoretic Writings by the Great Architect from Urbino

Bramante, poet of the socks

Recovered, after a long oblivion, 25 love and burlesque Sonnets and the famous "Opinion" on the Lantern of the Cathedral of Milan
by Carlo Vecce

Donato da Urbino, called Bramante, began his service at the court of Ludovico il Moro as "painter and engineer", in the same years in which Leonardo da Vinci arrived in Milan. The two are working together in core endeavours for the history of Western art such as, for example, Santa Maria delle Grazie; but also in the thousands of activities involved by their tasks at the court: inspection of fortifications, urban projects, decorations in the Castello Sforzesco, the organization of festivals and theatre performances. And Leonardo explicitly referred to Bramante in his manuscripts, for ideas or designs supplied to him by his friend: "Bramante’s groups" (or "knots", drawings of bound figures such as those which Leonardo devised for the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco) and "Bramante’s buildings"; but the most significant quote is that in which Leonardo refers to Bramante with the most familiar and intimate diminutive of his name, Donnino: "Way of the drawbridge showed to me by Donnino" (manuscript M, c . 53v , ca. 1499).

Still together, but perhaps on discordant positions, they found themselves in the story of the lantern of the Duomo of Milan, for which Bramante presented an assessment, the so-called Opinio, dating from around 1487-1488: after having examined models of other architects, Donato did not spare criticism for no one, chasing an ideal model of a high lantern on a square plan, which went against the expectations of the Committee of the Fabbrica del Duomo, and also against the habits of generations of engineers and construction workers, who had succeeded in a century in that collective work. The document is important for us, not only because it is the only surviving fragment of the techniques writings that Bramante composed, but also for the concrete style of argumentation and for the use of the concepts of harmony and proportionality that are derived from Leon Battista Alberti.

With nobody one else in the years of his stay in Milan, Bramante had a more intense relationship than those intertwined with the young patrician Gasparo Visconti, ducal counselor, poet and writer of plays for Sforza theatre performances (the Pasitea) and inspirer of the most important anthology of poetry at the Sforza court in those years, the Parisian Italian manuscript 1543, that hosts the collection of sonnets by Bramante. The artist lived in a state of privileged intimacy with Messer Gasparo and even lived in a house owned by the friend; his burlesque verses present him as a sparring partner in a comedy on the topic of socks, old and worn, already purchased with the money of the Visconti, who should now finance new ones. But it is especially important to note that Visconti consecrated Bramante as a "poet" in front of the circle of literates in Milan, providing him that ‘license’ which instead Leonardo did not obtain (and did not aspire to have either, as evidenced by his first writings on the comparison between poetry and painting, absolutely contemporary). Indeed, Bramante is even presented as a censor and a critic of the rhymes of others, as he appears in the exchange of sonnets between Visconti and Girolamo Tetavilla, evidenced both from Visconti’s autograph Trivulziano 1093 as well as the luxury code Trivulziano 2157. To Bramante as a critic, an image of Bramante passionate student of Dante is added. Always Visconti, in the Rithimi (Rhymes) published in 1493, provides a sonnet on Dante and Petrarch with the following caption: "This sonnet was not made to judge between such great men, but only to jest Bramante, a passionate partisan of Dante": a valuable indication for understanding the position of Bramante against the generic background of Petrarchism in the late fifteenth century, in whose orbit Visconti also moved himself; and Bramante had to stick to the pro-Dante line that was still so alive in his Marche.

On the other hand, the presence of Petrarch in Bramante does not appear unambiguous: the references to Petrarch, often rhythmic clauses or sections, are linked together to an unusual vocabulary and concrete images, deprived of any metaphorical level. The short collection of poems on love even revealed itself as two-faced, with an old and one new amorous liaison, namely a double love for two women at the same time. Bramante affords some little artifice, like the inclusive rhyme, which gives the feeling of the pounding of the rhymed word, then denoting a certain skill on metrics and prosody. And the level of the argument seems to stay on top of contemporary poets like Taccone, with results that are sometimes even better than Visconti. The love poems are finally dropped from those occasional references (names and actual circumstances) that teemed in the courtly lyrics: references, however, which come back in the burlesque verses, with an evidence that provides useful data for the reconstruction of biographical events of the author, not referred to in any other document (the journey to Liguria and Piedmont, the salary of the artist, the familiarity with Bergonzino Botta and Marchesino Stanga). Bear in mind, however, that the themes of the torn coat and the broken socks, the garron, poverty and demand for money, completely fit into the conventional and collective game of courtly burlesque, in the production of poets closest to Bramante among those practising this genre: Bellincioni and Pistoia. It is significant to note that none of the poets in the Sforza court mentions, except in passing, the real profession of Donato, accepted as a poet among poets, even in disputes. Nor should we forget that the composition of some of his sonnets could take place “allo improvviso” [n.d.r. on the spot, improvising]: Bramante, in the course of a banquet, improvised a sonnet making joke of Paolo da Taegio. It was the expression of an open and playful personality, on which Vasari could still testify: "It was a very cheerful and pleasant person and always delighted to benefit his next people. (...) He delighted himself of poetry and gladly listened to the lyre and improvised some sonnets, though not as delicate as it is used now, but at least serious and without flaws.". And the game could go to tease - towards the end of the century - the climate of apocalyptic prophecy that had gradually taken the place of the "partying mood" which had been typical of the Milan of Ludovico il Moro. Once again on the same line of Leonardo and his prophecies, Bramante stages, in one of his sonnets, a terrifying dance of death, a resurrection of the dead on the Day of Judgment: nothing more than a joke, which turns out to be the description of the game of dice on the board.

Then, poetry remains silent. The Duchy of Milan collapses in 1499, Bramante moves to Rome, where he builds his glory and his fortune, especially in symbiosis with great and terrible ideas of Pope Julius II, whom he impressed with the projects of the Belvedere and San Pietro. He still had a playing spirit, as he demonstrated in the curious hieroglyphics of the Belvedere; probably he continued reciting in Rome the sonnet on the dice; and there was even time to read and comment on Dante to Pope Julius. Raphael, who owed him a lot, portrayed him as Euclid in the School of Athens and the famous letter to Leo X, largely drafted by Castiglione, who picked up, however, the ideas of the master. But its isolation increased and contacts with the Roman humanist culture remained scarce: in the triumph of Ciceronianism in Rome, Bramante pretended to be ignorant.

[5] This is an essay by Dante Isella on Bramante's sonnets: http://www.carlarossi.info/lezioniHS10/isella_bramante.pdf