Michele Sanmichele (Sanmicheli)
b. Verona, c. 1484;
d. Verona, 1559.

Michele Sanmichele was a prolific, if rather pedestrian, designer, much of whose work for clients in Venice and the mainland (Veneto) was a compromise between Venetian and Tuscan influences, delegated to assistants from his workshop. Descended from a long line of Lombard stone-cutters, Sanmichele went to Rome at the age of sixteen (in 1500) and was trained by the circle of papal architects which included Bramante. Strongly influenced as an engineer and town-planner by Roman examples, Sanmichele collaborated with Architect Antonio da Sangallo The Younger. As a military architect, he worked in the Venetian overseas empire (Dalmatia, Corfu, Cyprus, Crete). After the traumatic Sack of Rome (1527), Sanmichele, like many other artists drawn there by the opportunities offered by the papal court, went home. In Verona, from the age of 43, he carried out commissions in and around the city, especially for palazzi of novel design (e.g. Bevilacqua). A theme inspired by Bramante’s Tempietto in Rome shows in Sanmichele’s circular sanctuary screen in Verona Cathedral and his own version of the Tempietto in the hospital (lazzaretto) near Verona. His civil works included erecting (or, as in Verona, demilitarizing) fortifications, and designing gateways.

List of major buildings / works:
Palazzo Canossa, Verona, c.1530.
Palazzo Bevilacqua, Verona, c.1530.
Verona Cathedral (sanctuary screen), 1534-41.
Palazzo Grimani at S. Luca, Venice, from 1557.

Bibliography
Eric Langenskiold, Michele Sanmicheli, the architect of Verona, Uppsala, 1938.
L. Puppi, Michele Sanmicheli, Padua, 1971.