Bramante’s Obsolescence: Drawing Architecture in Time

Against dominant interpretations that equate Western classicism with permanence and durability, the work of Donato Bramante—unanimously acknowledged as one of the founders of this tradition—points in a different direction. Seen through the eyes of his contemporaries and across a broader temporal frame, his method demonstrates a consciously transformational approach to construction: one that values the potential of impermanence and exposes architecture to a constant process of mutation. Especially in his late projects, which responded to the ever-changing ruined landscape of Rome, time itself became a material of design. This lecture will explore Bramante’s shockingly open-ended approach, focusing on drawings that responded to the transient nature of his architecture and the new notions of authorship these experiments produced.

 Dario Donetti is a historian of Renaissance art and architecture, whose research examines the interplay between drawing practice, authorship, and the materiality of the building site, with a secondary interest in the twentieth-century avant-gardes. Trained at the Scuola Normale Superiore, he has held positions at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Villa Medici. He is Associate Professor at the University of Verona and currently the Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellow at the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

ABOVE: New York, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Codex Mellon fol. 70v.