BRAMBILLA, Ambrogio
Italian printmaker and cartographer. Of Milanese origin, he is recorded first in Rome in 1579 as a member of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon, and he remained there at least until 1599, the date of his last work. In 1582 Brambilla produced a series of 135 small engravings of emperors from Julius Caesar to Rudolf II and in 1585 another series, of the popes to Sixtus V. His most successful works, however, were prints of scenographic reconstructions of antiquity such as the Sepulchre of Lucius Septimius (1582) and contemporary views of ancient and modern Rome, for example the Belvedere del Vaticano (1579) and the Fireworks Display at Castel Sant’Angelo (1579).
Many of his prints depicting ancient monuments, produced after 1577, were included in the Speculum Romanae magnificentiae. He also produced prints depicting popular games and street scenes. In 1589 he engraved the Last Judgement after a relief sculpture in wax on slate by Giacomo Vivio based on Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. Two unpublished engravings depict a Perspective Map of Ancona (1585) and a View of the Catafalque for the Funeral of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1589; both Milan, Castello Sforzesco). Later sources record Brambilla’s activity as a poet, sculptor in bronze, painter and architect.
