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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How old was Leonardo when Salai came to live with him?
(a) 38.
(b) 50.
(c) 24.
(d) 21.

2. What was the population of Florence in 1300 before the devastation caused by the Black Death?
(a) 50,000.
(b) 140,000.
(c) 100,000.
(d) 80,000.

3. What was Leonardo's favorite branch of mathematics?
(a) Geometry.
(b) Algebra.
(c) Statistics.
(d) Calculus.

4. What was different about Leonardo's drawings of machines than those of his contemporaries?
(a) Leonardo drew all of the different pieces of the machine separately.
(b) Leonardo's drawings did not use color.
(c) Leonardo's drawings were never shown to anyone.
(d) Leonardo's drawings were done using charcoal.

5. Isaacson writes that "No scientist before Leonardo had methodically shown how birds" (183) perform what action?
(a) Stay aloft.
(b) Dive.
(c) Land.
(d) Take off.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what season of 1452 was Leonardo born?

2. What fraction of Florence's population was literate in 1472?

3. What is the term for the technique that uses contrasts of light and shadow in order to achieve the appearance of three dimensions in a two-dimensional work?

4. When Leonardo came upon a cave while hiking near Florence, what type of fossilized animal did he discover within the confines of the cave?

5. In what year was a great deal of information found and published about the identity of Leonardo's mother?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Leonardo mean when he wrote, "He who has access to the fountain does not go to the water-jar" (176)?

2. What plan did Leonardo have for the casting of the horse monument that no one had ever attempted before?

3. What symbolism did Leonardo see in the reeds he included in his drawing of Pleasure and Pain?

4. What does Walter Isaacson say was the main lesson he tried to take from Leonardo's life in order to apply it to his own life?

5. What was the main source of information used by Walter Isaacson in his writing of Leonardo's biography?

6. When Leonardo joined a competition of architects, what was the assigned task for the contest?

7. The essayist Benedetto Dei wrote in 1972 that Florence "has all seven of the fundamental things a city requires for perfection" (26). What were the seven things he named?

8. What was revealed about Leonardo's looks and personality in early works written about his person?

9. What language did Leonardo decide to teach himself in the early 1490s and what was the result?

10. In what way did Leonardo's illegitimacy grant him certain freedoms?

(see the answer keys)

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