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Bramante is widely credited for having pioneered a new and assertively antique architectural style in Rome at almost the very start of the sixteenth century, as is supposedly demonstrated by his Tempietto which is almost universally agreed to date from around 1502.
If his buildings are analysed more objectively, however, and the Tempietto is assigned - as seems very likely - to a much later point in his career, then a rather different picture of his intentions emerges, and his engagement with Antiquity can be seen as having evolved in a much less abrupt and tidy manner.
David Hemsoll is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Birmingham, where he is a specialist in Renaissance art and architecture, especially of Rome, Florence and Venice. He first studied architecture before turning to art history (University of East Anglia; Courtauld Institute). Subsequently, he worked on the ‘Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance’ at the Warburg Institute. Arriving at the University of Birmingham with the re-founding of its art history department (1990), he was eventually departmental head for eight years (2002–10). He is co-author (with Paul Davies) of Michele Sanmicheli (Milan, 2004) and Renaissance and Later Architecture and Ornament (London, 2012), cataloguing architectural drawings once belonging to Cassiano dal Pozzo; and has written numerous articles on Renaissance architecture. More recently he has served as the editor of the scholarly journal Architectural History.