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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. What type of paint did Leonardo use to create the work entitled Lady with an Ermine?
(a) Watercolor.
(b) Tempera.
(c) Oil.
(d) Lead.

2. The most basic anatomical knowledge for a painter is the study of what?
(a) Tendons.
(b) Ligaments.
(c) Bones.
(d) Muscles.

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

4. Even though Isabella told Leonardo that she would pay whatever he wished for a painting, he declined. Who then stepped in to offer Isabella one of his own paintings?
(a) Boticelli.
(b) Salai.
(c) Michelangelo.
(d) Verracchio.

5. What are diabase?
(a) River curves.
(b) Metamorphic rocks.
(c) Intrusive igneous rocks.
(d) Sedimentary rocks.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what year did the friar Savonarola depose the Medici family and institute a fundamentalist regime in Florence?

2. Who wrote the book On Painting, which became a Bible for Leonardo?

3. What is the primary characteristic of Leonardo's angel in the painting Virgin of the Rocks that causes it to be much discussed by scholars?

4. According to Walter Isaacson, what was the paramount theme in Leonardo's art?

5. How did Florence save itself from plunder by Cesare Borgia and his armies?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. When Leonardo moved to Milan in 1482, what did he discover about the study of anatomy in that location?

3. How does Walter Isaacson link the qualities of genius and the qualities of obsession within the chapter about Leonardo's first round of anatomy studies?

4. In the mid-1490s, Leonardo put aside his work on anatomy and would not return to it for another decade. What endeavor did he begin upon dropping his anatomy studies?

5. Though Leonardo had completed the central part of his painting Saint Anne by 1503, he did not give it to the party who had commissioned it. What did he do with it instead?

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

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

8. When Leonardo returned to Florence in 1500, how had Florence changed in the time he had been away?

9. What was the event known as the Bonfire of the Vanities?

10. How did Leonardo use his knowledge of geology to inform his painting of Virgin of the Rocks?

(see the answer keys)

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