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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. Cesare Borgia became the first man in history to perform what action?
(a) Resign from the cardinalate.
(b) Lead an army wearing clerical robes.
(c) Prosecute an artist for not producing purchased work.
(d) Defend the Vatican from attack.

2. The center of medical research in Milan during the Renaissance was what university?
(a) The University of Bologna.
(b) The University of Catania.
(c) The University of Pavia.
(d) The University of Sannio.

3. What was Leonardo's main reason for studying anatomy?
(a) To impress his friends in the medical field.
(b) To publish his discoveries.
(c) To gain admittance to medical school.
(d) To improve his art.

4. In the world of the Renaissance, what did a white ermine represent?
(a) Wrath.
(b) Style.
(c) Elegance.
(d) Purity.

5. When Leonardo went to Venice in 1500 in order to offer military advice to defend against a threatened invasion, which country was threatening to invade Venice?
(a) France.
(b) Austria.
(c) Turkey.
(d) Egypt.

Short Answer Questions

1. Leonardo was the first person to correctly depict what aspect of the human body?

2. Leonardo's Vitruvian Man was the product of his visit to the university in which Italian city?

3. The most basic anatomical knowledge for a painter is the study of what?

4. The Florentine tradition known as disegno lineamentum used what to create forms and designs?

5. Around the time Leonardo began his most famous lost painting, he also undertook what life change?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the cause of Friar Savonarola's death and when did it occur?

2. What were the two colors most favored by Leonardo in the tailoring of both his clothes and the clothes of Salai?

3. What reasons did Leonardo have for always wanting to portray portrait subjects facing the viewer or in three-quarters view, contrary to the customary profile pose?

4. What signature element of Leonardo's paintings is missing from the second version of Virgin of the Rocks but is present in the first version?

5. While Leonardo came to the court of Ludovico Sforza hoping to work primarily as a military and civil engineer, what was the nature of most of the work he completed in the decade he was in service to Ludovico Sforza?

6. What evidence does Walter Isaacson provide for his claim that much of Leonardo's thinking was collegial?

7. What are the two possibilities concerning the angel's identity within the painting Virgin of the Rocks?

8. What does Walter Isaacson point to in Leonardo's creation of the painting Virgin of the Rocks that he says illustrates Leonardo's insistence on realism in his art?

9. What was the significance of Leonardo's depiction of the human frontal sinus?

10. What novel idea did Leonardo come up with for protecting a port, an idea which he never brought to fruition?

(see the answer keys)

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