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Leonardo da Vinci - Quiz
Contributed by: Downes
  • 1. When was Leonardo da Vinci born?
A) June 15, 1478
B) March 22, 1433
C) April 15, 1452
D) August 10, 1520
  • 2. Which Italian ruler was a patron of Leonardo da Vinci?
A) Ludovico Sforza
B) Cleopatra
C) Napoleon Bonaparte
D) Julius Caesar
  • 3. What is Leonardo da Vinci's most famous portrait?
A) Mona Lisa
B) American Gothic
C) Girl with a Pearl Earring
D) The Starry Night
  • 4. What French king invited Leonardo da Vinci to live and work at the Château de Cloux?
A) Louis XIV
B) Philip II
C) Henry VIII
D) Francis I
  • 5. What did Leonardo da Vinci dissect to study human anatomy?
A) Corpses
B) Insects
C) Mannequins
D) Animals
  • 6. What was the name of Leonardo da Vinci's notebook filled with sketches and ideas?
A) Tome
B) Scroll
C) Codex
D) Tablet
  • 7. Who was the teacher who inspired and encouraged Leonardo da Vinci's artistic talents?
A) Andrea del Verrocchio
B) Pablo Picasso
C) Vincent van Gogh
D) Rembrandt
  • 8. What is the title of the mural painted by Leonardo da Vinci that depicts the dinner Jesus had with his disciples before his crucifixion?
A) The Creation of Adam
B) The Sistine Chapel
C) The Last Supper
D) The Birth of Venus
  • 9. What is Leonardo da Vinci's full name?
A) Leonardo Donatello di Vinci
B) Leonardo Raphael da Vinci
C) Leonardo Michelangelo di Vinci
D) Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
  • 10. Where did Leonardo spend his last three years?
A) Florence
B) France
C) Milan
D) Rome
  • 11. What record did Salvator Mundi set in 2017?
A) Most expensive painting sold at public auction
B) First painting by Leonardo sold at auction
C) Oldest painting sold at auction
D) Largest painting sold at auction
  • 12. Which field did Leonardo make substantial discoveries in?
A) Philosophy
B) Astronomy
C) Anatomy
D) Chemistry
  • 13. What type of vehicle did Leonardo conceptualize?
A) Steam engine
B) Hot air balloon
C) Submarine
D) Armoured fighting vehicle
  • 14. Which invention by Leonardo entered manufacturing unheralded?
A) Flying machine
B) Armoured fighting vehicle
C) Automated bobbin winder
D) Ratio machine
  • 15. What is the approximate distance of Vinci from Florence?
A) 20 miles
B) 50 miles
C) 10 miles
D) 30 miles
  • 16. What was Leonardo's father's profession?
A) Merchant
B) Artisan
C) Painter
D) Florentine legal notary
  • 17. What nickname was given to Antonio di Piero Buti del Vacca?
A) 'The notary'
B) 'The quarrelsome one'
C) 'The scholar'
D) 'The painter'
  • 18. How many times did Ser Piero marry after Caterina?
A) One
B) Two
C) Three
D) Four
  • 19. How many half-siblings did Leonardo have who survived infancy?
A) 5
B) 8
C) 11
D) 16
  • 20. At what age was the last of Leonardo's half-siblings born?
A) 30 years old
B) 46 years old
C) 50 years old
D) 40 years old
  • 21. What type of education did Leonardo receive?
A) Basic and informal
B) Advanced formal
C) Military training
D) Religious schooling
  • 22. Which skills were included in Leonardo's basic education?
A) Sculpture, painting, and music
B) (Vernacular) writing, reading, and mathematics
C) Latin, philosophy, and science
D) Engineering, anatomy, and astronomy
  • 23. What is the name of Leonardo's earliest memory recorded in the Codex Atlanticus?
A) Meeting his father
B) Painting his first artwork
C) Flying a bird for the first time
D) A kite came to his cradle and opened his mouth with its tail
  • 24. Who recorded Leonardo's biography in 'Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'?
A) Giorgio Vasari
B) Antonio da Vinci
C) Leonardo da Vinci
D) Francesco da Vinci
  • 25. Where did Leonardo da Vinci become an apprentice around the age of 14?
A) Verrocchio's workshop
B) Medici Palace
C) Platonic Academy
D) Bargello
  • 26. Which artist's death coincided with Leonardo becoming a studio boy?
A) Donatello
B) Ghiberti
C) Masaccio
D) Piero della Francesca
  • 27. Who were Leonardo's contemporaries that he met at Verrocchio's workshop?
A) Alberti, Piero della Francesca, Raphael
B) Donatello, Masaccio, Ghiberti
C) Michelangelo, Bramante, Titian
D) Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino
  • 28. Which artist's work was known for realism and emotion in frescoes?
A) Piero della Francesca
B) Leon Battista Alberti
C) Masaccio
D) Ghiberti
  • 29. What was the title of the painting Leonardo collaborated on with Verrocchio?
A) Tobias and the Angel
B) David
C) The Baptism of Christ
D) Madonna of the Rocks
  • 30. What technique did Leonardo apply to parts of 'The Baptism of Christ'?
A) Watercolor
B) Fresco
C) Oil paint
D) Tempera only
  • 31. What did Leonardo paint on a buckler shield that was sold for 100 ducats?
A) Mona Lisa
B) The Last Supper
C) A monster spitting fire
D) Vitruvian Man
  • 32. What was the form of the silver string instrument Leonardo brought to Milan?
A) An eagle's beak
B) A lion's mane
C) A horse's head
D) A dolphin's tail
  • 33. What was the name of the equestrian monument Leonardo planned for Ludovico Sforza?
A) Bartolomeo Colleoni
B) Gran Cavallo
C) Gattamelata
D) Regisole
  • 34. What was the trompe-l'œil decoration in the Sala delle Asse intended to resemble?
A) A forest of oak trees
B) A vineyard
C) A garden of roses
D) A pergola created by interwoven mulberry trees
  • 35. Where did Leonardo flee to after Ludovico Sforza was overthrown?
A) Rome
B) Florence
C) Milan
D) Venice
  • 36. Who was Leonardo in service to in Cesena in 1502?
A) Charles II d'Amboise
B) Ludovico Sforza
C) Pope Alexander VI
D) Cesare Borgia
  • 37. Which anatomical feature did Leonardo da Vinci make one of the first scientific drawings of in utero?
A) Heart
B) Liver
C) Foetus
D) Lungs
  • 38. Who assumed the papacy in March 1513?
A) Lorenzo de' Medici's son Giovanni as Leo X
B) Giuliano de' Medici
C) Pope Julius II
D) Pope Clement VII
  • 39. What was the total amount of Leonardo's pension in France?
A) 5,000 ducats
B) 8,000 crowns
C) 10,000 scudi
D) 15,000 florins
  • 40. Where did Leonardo da Vinci die?
A) Florence
B) Milan
C) Rome
D) Clos Lucé
  • 41. What was the height of the skeleton discovered by Houssaye?
A) 1.73 metres (5.7 ft)
B) 1.60 metres (5.3 ft)
C) 1.50 metres (4.9 ft)
D) 2.00 metres (6.6 ft)
  • 42. What nickname was given to Leonardo's assistant Salaì?
A) Il Salaino
B) The Master's Shadow
C) The Little Genius
D) The Pupil
  • 43. Who was Leonardo working on an equestrian monument for?
A) Gian Giacomo Trivulzio
B) King Francis I of France
C) Lorenzo de' Medici
D) Pope Leo X
  • 44. Which king of France supported Leonardo in his old age?
A) Francis I
B) Louis XII
C) Charles IX
D) Henry II
  • 45. Under whom did Leonardo da Vinci study mathematics in the 1490s?
A) Nicolas Poussin
B) Luca Pacioli
C) Cardinal Louis d'Aragon
D) Marcantonio della Torre
  • 46. What is 'sfumato', a technique used by Leonardo?
A) A style of painting with visible brushstrokes
B) A method of using bright, contrasting colors
C) A way to create three-dimensional effects with lines
D) The subtle shadowing that creates a smoky effect
  • 47. What was Leonardo da Vinci's painting technique for 'The Last Supper'?
A) Tempera over a ground that was mainly gesso
B) Oil on canvas
C) Encaustic wax painting
D) Fresco on wet plaster
  • 48. Who was King Francis I's royal advisor that sent instructions regarding Leonardo?
A) Antonio Maria Pallavicini
B) Guillaume Gouffier, seigneur de Bonnivet
C) Lorenzo di Credi
D) Francesco Melzi
  • 49. Who was Leonardo's favourite student?
A) Bernardino Luini
B) Marco d'Oggiono
C) Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
D) Count Francesco Melzi
  • 50. What did Vasari say about the 'Mona Lisa's' smile?
A) 'It is identical to the original model's smile'
B) 'So pleasing that it seems more divine than human'
C) 'It lacks any emotional depth'
D) 'It is a simple and unremarkable feature'
  • 51. What was the subject of a project Leonardo may have commenced for Charles II d'Amboise?
A) A mural
B) A map
C) An equestrian figure
D) A portrait
  • 52. In what year did Leonardo first state the 'laws' of sliding friction in his notebooks?
A) 1512
B) 1520
C) 1493
D) 1505
  • 53. Who observed Leonardo at work on 'The Last Supper' and wrote about it?
A) Ludovico Sforza
B) Matteo Bandello
C) Michelangelo
D) Vasari
  • 54. Who made explicit his opinion that Leonardo's relations with Salaì were intimate and homosexual?
A) Vasari
B) Walter Isaacson
C) Sigmund Freud
D) Melzi
  • 55. Which artist's drawings were based on Leonardo's anatomical studies for publication?
A) Michelangelo
B) Nicolas Poussin
C) Raphael
D) Titian
  • 56. Which river's flow did Leonardo devise a scheme to divert in 1502?
A) Adige
B) Arno
C) Po
D) Tiber
  • 57. What was one of the projects Leonardo worked on for Pope Leo X regarding the Pontine Marshes?
A) Building a new church
B) Designing a fountain
C) Creating a botanical garden
D) Plans for draining them
  • 58. What did Leonardo decorate with scales dipped in quicksilver?
A) A lizard
B) A statue
C) A painting
D) A manuscript
  • 59. What did Leonardo make notes on while dissecting cadavers in the Vatican Gardens?
A) Engineering designs
B) Anatomy of the human body
C) Botanical studies
D) A treatise on vocal cords
  • 60. What was found on one finger of the skeleton discovered by Arsène Houssaye?
A) A silver bracelet
B) An iron nail
C) A gold necklace
D) A bronze ring
  • 61. Which pupil of Leonardo is considered to have artistic merit comparable to others like Marco d'Oggiono?
A) Salaì
B) Melzi
C) Boltraffio
D) Luca Pacioli
  • 62. Which painting by Leonardo da Vinci is characterized by the Virgin Mary sitting or kneeling to the right, approached by an angel?
A) Annunciations
B) Mona Lisa
C) Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
D) Virgin of the Rocks
  • 63. Where did Leonardo live from September 1513 to 1516?
A) In the Belvedere Courtyard in the Apostolic Palace, Rome
B) Porta Orientale, Milan
C) Clos Lucé near Château d'Amboise
D) At Medici's Vaprio d'Adda villa
  • 64. What event led to the demolition of the church where Leonardo was buried?
A) World War I
B) The Black Plague
C) The French Revolution
D) An earthquake in 1802
  • 65. Which drawing technique did Leonardo use in 'The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist'?
A) Sfumato
B) Impasto
C) Grisaille
D) Chiaroscuro
  • 66. What did Leonardo identify as defining the circulatory system?
A) The heart
B) The lungs
C) The brain
D) The liver
  • 67. Who owns the Codex Leicester?
A) The British Library
B) John Nicholas Brown I
C) Robert Lehman
D) Bill Gates
  • 68. Which book did Leonardo collaborate on with mathematician Luca Pacioli?
A) The Last Supper
B) Divina proportione
C) Mona Lisa
D) Vitruvian Man
  • 69. What was Leonardo given as a monthly allowance in Rome?
A) 33 ducats
B) 50 scudi
C) 20 florins
D) 40 crowns
  • 70. Which flying machine did Leonardo design that mimics bird flight?
A) Glider
B) Helicopter
C) Flapping ornithopter
D) Hot air balloon
  • 71. Which Renaissance movement recognized no polarities between the sciences and the arts?
A) Romanticism
B) Renaissance humanism
C) Baroque period
D) The Enlightenment
  • 72. Which painting by Leonardo da Vinci is characterized by a calm young woman accepting her role as the Mother of God with confidence?
A) Lady with an Ermine
B) Mona Lisa
C) The larger Annunciation
D) Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
  • 73. Who also worked on the project to divert the Arno river's flow alongside Leonardo?
A) Michelangelo
B) Pope Leo X
C) Ludovico il Moro
D) Niccolò Machiavelli
  • 74. Who discovered a partially complete skeleton believed to be Leonardo's remains?
A) Mary Margaret Heaton
B) Napoleon III
C) Arsène Houssaye
D) Charles Nicholl
  • 75. Who collaborated with Leonardo in his anatomical studies from 1510 to 1511?
A) Luca Pacioli
B) Marcantonio della Torre
C) Nicolas Poussin
D) Verrocchio
  • 76. In which year did Leonardo write to Ludovico il Moro about creating machines for city protection?
A) 1502
B) 1499
C) 1482
D) 1510
  • 77. Which of the following did Leonardo not study anatomically?
A) Cows
B) Insects
C) Monkeys
D) Bears
  • 78. How was the painting referred to as Joconda valued in Salaì's posthumous inventory?
A) 300 lire
B) 750 lire
C) 1000 lire
D) 505 lire
  • 79. In what year was Leonardo charged with sodomy, and how old was he at the time?
A) 1492, aged forty-one
B) 1485, aged thirty-three
C) 1503, aged fifty-two
D) 1476, aged twenty-four
  • 80. What technique did Leonardo perfect that represents internal components in technical drawings?
A) Exploded view
B) Orthographic projection
C) Isometric view
D) Perspective view
  • 81. What did Leonardo create that walked towards the King during a pageant?
A) A painting of Francis I
B) An equestrian statue
C) A mechanical lion
D) A portrait of Louise of Savoy
  • 82. On what date did Leonardo da Vinci pass away?
A) May 2, 1519
B) April 15, 1506
C) June 23, 1524
D) March 30, 1498
  • 83. When did Leonardo return to Florence after leaving Borgia's service?
A) Late 1504
B) Early 1506
C) Early 1503
D) Mid-1505
  • 84. Where was Leonardo sorting out a dispute in 1507?
A) Venice
B) Milan
C) Rome
D) Florence
  • 85. Which television series built ten machines designed by Leonardo?
A) Doing DaVinci
B) Masters of Invention
C) Leonardo's Dream Machines
D) The Art of Engineering
  • 86. Which of Leonardo's works is noted for its androgyny and eroticism?
A) Vitruvian Man
B) Saint John the Baptist
C) The Last Supper
D) Mona Lisa
  • 87. What year were documents published revealing Houssaye's actions?
A) 1999
B) 1987
C) 2005
D) 2019
  • 88. Who summoned Leonardo to Milan in 1506?
A) Pope Alexander VI
B) Cesare Borgia
C) Charles II d'Amboise
D) Ludovico Sforza
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