Renaissance Quiz
Leonardo, Michelangelo, the Medici, Machiavelli, Galileo: 15 questions on the age that reinvented Europe.
In which Italian city is the Renaissance generally said to have begun?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Florence
Florence's wealth from banking and the wool trade, its competitive guilds and its ambitious patrons made it the cradle of the Renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The word Renaissance, French for rebirth, was popularized by 19th-century historians, long after the period itself.
Who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo painted more than 300 figures across the Sistine ceiling for Pope Julius II, including the Creation of Adam, although he considered himself a sculptor rather than a painter.
He returned more than 20 years later to paint The Last Judgment on the chapel's altar wall, finishing it in 1541.
Michelangelo's statue of David, completed in 1504, was carved from what material?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Marble
David was carved from a single block of Carrara marble that two earlier sculptors had abandoned, and the finished statue stands about 5.17 m (17 ft) tall.
The statue stood outside the Palazzo Vecchio for more than 350 years before being moved indoors to the Galleria dell'Accademia in 1873.
Which artist painted The Last Supper on the wall of a convent dining hall in Milan?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Leonardo
Leonardo painted The Last Supper in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie between about 1495 and 1498, using an experimental technique that began to flake within his own lifetime.
The mural survived an Allied bombing raid in 1943 that destroyed much of the refectory, protected by sandbags piled against the wall.
Renaissance humanists revived the study of texts from which ancient civilizations?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Greece and Rome
Humanists such as Petrarch hunted for lost Latin manuscripts in monastery libraries, while Greek scholars arriving from Constantinople brought Plato and other classical texts to Italian cities.
Petrarch, often called the father of humanism, coined the idea that the centuries after Rome's fall were a dark age.
Which banking family ruled Florence for much of the Renaissance and funded artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
The Medici
The Medici bank made the family the richest in Europe, and Cosimo and his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent used that wealth to dominate Florentine politics and sponsor art and learning.
The family produced four popes and two queens of France, Catherine and Marie de' Medici.
Which German craftsman developed a printing press with movable metal type around 1440?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Johannes Gutenberg
Gutenberg combined movable metal type, oil-based ink and a modified screw press in Mainz, and his 42-line Bible of around 1455 was the first major book printed in Europe.
Around 49 copies of the Gutenberg Bible survive, and complete copies rank among the most valuable books in the world.
Which poet's Divine Comedy, written in the early 1300s, helped establish Tuscan as the basis of modern Italian?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Dante Alighieri
Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in the Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin between about 1308 and 1320, and its popularity helped make that dialect the foundation of standard Italian.
The poem follows Dante through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by his beloved Beatrice.
Who wrote The Prince, the famously ruthless guide to political power published in 1532?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Machiavelli, a former Florentine diplomat, wrote The Prince around 1513 after the returning Medici dismissed and tortured him, and it was printed five years after his death in 1527.
The book was dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, in a bid to win back a government job, which never came.
Which astronomer's 1543 book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres argued that the Earth orbits the Sun?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Nicolaus Copernicus
Copernicus placed the Sun at the center of the universe and had the Earth spin daily and orbit yearly, overturning the Earth-centered model that had dominated for 1,400 years.
Legend says Copernicus received the first printed copy on his deathbed in 1543, having delayed publication for years.
In Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, the goddess arrives at the shore standing on what?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
A scallop shell
Botticelli painted Venus drifting ashore on a giant scallop shell, blown by the wind god Zephyr, in a work made for the Medici family in the mid-1480s.
The painting hangs in the Uffizi in Florence and was among the first large Tuscan works painted on canvas rather than wood.
Which scientist was tried by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for defending the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Galileo Galilei
Galileo was found 'vehemently suspect of heresy' in 1633 for his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, forced to recant and kept under house arrest for the rest of his life.
In 1992 Pope John Paul II formally acknowledged that the Church had erred in condemning Galileo.
Who engineered the enormous dome of Florence Cathedral, completed in 1436?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Filippo Brunelleschi
Brunelleschi won the 1418 competition to build the dome and raised it without traditional wooden scaffolding, using a double shell and a herringbone brick pattern to support the structure.
It remains the largest masonry dome ever built, and Brunelleschi is also credited with developing linear perspective in painting.
Leonardo's drawing of a man with outstretched limbs inside a circle and a square is named after which ancient Roman architect?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Vitruvius
Vitruvian Man, drawn around 1490, illustrates the ideal human proportions described by the Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise De architectura, showing that a man with arms and legs spread fits both a circle and a square.
The fragile pen-and-ink drawing is kept in Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia and is only rarely put on public display.
Which Dominican friar inspired the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence in 1497, when artworks and luxuries were burned?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Girolamo Savonarola
Savonarola effectively ruled Florence after the Medici were expelled in 1494, and on 7 February 1497 his followers burned cosmetics, books and paintings in the Piazza della Signoria.
Savonarola was excommunicated and in May 1498 was hanged and burned on the same square where the bonfire had taken place.
Your results
More to explore
All History quizzes →About the Renaissance Quiz
Between the 1300s and the 1600s, Europe rediscovered Greece and Rome and produced an explosion of genius. Michelangelo painted the Sistine ceiling, Leonardo filled notebooks with flying machines, Gutenberg's press put books into ordinary hands and Copernicus moved the Earth out of the center of the universe.
These 15 questions cover Renaissance art, science and politics: the Medici bankers who ran Florence, Brunelleschi's impossible dome, Botticelli's Venus, Machiavelli's The Prince, Galileo's trial and the friar who burned paintings in the Bonfire of the Vanities. The opening questions are familiar to most people; later ones will reward anyone who has wandered the Uffizi or read a little art history.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Hard. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
What period does the Renaissance cover?
It began in Florence in the 14th century, peaked in the High Renaissance around 1490 to 1527, and spread across Europe through the 16th and early 17th centuries.
Does the quiz cover science as well as art?
Yes. Alongside Leonardo, Michelangelo and Botticelli there are questions on Copernicus, Galileo, Gutenberg's press and Brunelleschi's engineering.
Who were the Medici?
A Florentine banking family who dominated the city's politics from the 1430s and paid for much of its art, later producing four popes and two queens of France.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- In which Italian city is the Renaissance generally said to have begun?
Florence Florence's wealth from banking and the wool trade, its competitive guilds and its ambitious patrons made it the cradle of the Renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries. The word Renaissance, French for rebirth, was popularized by 19th-century historians, long after the period itself. - Who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512?
Michelangelo Michelangelo painted more than 300 figures across the Sistine ceiling for Pope Julius II, including the Creation of Adam, although he considered himself a sculptor rather than a painter. He returned more than 20 years later to paint The Last Judgment on the chapel's altar wall, finishing it in 1541. - Michelangelo's statue of David, completed in 1504, was carved from what material?
Marble David was carved from a single block of Carrara marble that two earlier sculptors had abandoned, and the finished statue stands about 5.17 m (17 ft) tall. The statue stood outside the Palazzo Vecchio for more than 350 years before being moved indoors to the Galleria dell'Accademia in 1873. - Which artist painted The Last Supper on the wall of a convent dining hall in Milan?
Leonardo Leonardo painted The Last Supper in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie between about 1495 and 1498, using an experimental technique that began to flake within his own lifetime. The mural survived an Allied bombing raid in 1943 that destroyed much of the refectory, protected by sandbags piled against the wall. - Renaissance humanists revived the study of texts from which ancient civilizations?
Greece and Rome Humanists such as Petrarch hunted for lost Latin manuscripts in monastery libraries, while Greek scholars arriving from Constantinople brought Plato and other classical texts to Italian cities. Petrarch, often called the father of humanism, coined the idea that the centuries after Rome's fall were a dark age. - Which banking family ruled Florence for much of the Renaissance and funded artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo?
The Medici The Medici bank made the family the richest in Europe, and Cosimo and his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent used that wealth to dominate Florentine politics and sponsor art and learning. The family produced four popes and two queens of France, Catherine and Marie de' Medici. - Which German craftsman developed a printing press with movable metal type around 1440?
Johannes Gutenberg Gutenberg combined movable metal type, oil-based ink and a modified screw press in Mainz, and his 42-line Bible of around 1455 was the first major book printed in Europe. Around 49 copies of the Gutenberg Bible survive, and complete copies rank among the most valuable books in the world. - Which poet's Divine Comedy, written in the early 1300s, helped establish Tuscan as the basis of modern Italian?
Dante Alighieri Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in the Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin between about 1308 and 1320, and its popularity helped make that dialect the foundation of standard Italian. The poem follows Dante through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by his beloved Beatrice. - Who wrote The Prince, the famously ruthless guide to political power published in 1532?
Niccolò Machiavelli Machiavelli, a former Florentine diplomat, wrote The Prince around 1513 after the returning Medici dismissed and tortured him, and it was printed five years after his death in 1527. The book was dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, in a bid to win back a government job, which never came. - Which astronomer's 1543 book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres argued that the Earth orbits the Sun?
Nicolaus Copernicus Copernicus placed the Sun at the center of the universe and had the Earth spin daily and orbit yearly, overturning the Earth-centered model that had dominated for 1,400 years. Legend says Copernicus received the first printed copy on his deathbed in 1543, having delayed publication for years. - In Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, the goddess arrives at the shore standing on what?
A scallop shell Botticelli painted Venus drifting ashore on a giant scallop shell, blown by the wind god Zephyr, in a work made for the Medici family in the mid-1480s. The painting hangs in the Uffizi in Florence and was among the first large Tuscan works painted on canvas rather than wood. - Which scientist was tried by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for defending the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun?
Galileo Galilei Galileo was found 'vehemently suspect of heresy' in 1633 for his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, forced to recant and kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. In 1992 Pope John Paul II formally acknowledged that the Church had erred in condemning Galileo. - Who engineered the enormous dome of Florence Cathedral, completed in 1436?
Filippo Brunelleschi Brunelleschi won the 1418 competition to build the dome and raised it without traditional wooden scaffolding, using a double shell and a herringbone brick pattern to support the structure. It remains the largest masonry dome ever built, and Brunelleschi is also credited with developing linear perspective in painting. - Leonardo's drawing of a man with outstretched limbs inside a circle and a square is named after which ancient Roman architect?
Vitruvius Vitruvian Man, drawn around 1490, illustrates the ideal human proportions described by the Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise De architectura, showing that a man with arms and legs spread fits both a circle and a square. The fragile pen-and-ink drawing is kept in Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia and is only rarely put on public display. - Which Dominican friar inspired the Bonfire of the Vanities in Florence in 1497, when artworks and luxuries were burned?
Girolamo Savonarola Savonarola effectively ruled Florence after the Medici were expelled in 1494, and on 7 February 1497 his followers burned cosmetics, books and paintings in the Piazza della Signoria. Savonarola was excommunicated and in May 1498 was hanged and burned on the same square where the bonfire had taken place.
Browse other categories
Every category has its own quizzes, each with instant explanations.