ABSTRACT
While the Great Schism had reduced both the ecclesiastical and temporal authority of the church in Italy, it had also provided an opportunity for humanist scholarship to develop in a more secular environment than hitherto, most notably in Florence. In the second half of the fifteenth century the papal administration fell increasingly under the control of a ‘sort of Curia elite., as politically-minded cardinals, pro-notaries, and senior papal officials fostered and extended their position through patronage and in influence’. Soon after arriving in Rome, and having already produced some remarkable church architecture in Milan, Donato Bramante was employed by Cardinal Oliviero in 1499 to prepare plans for the construction of cloisters in the Church of Santa Maria della Pace. Bramante’s expertise in ecclesiastical architecture soon resulted in him attracting the attention of King Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife Queen Isabella of Castile.
