Quiz on Michelangelo

In which country did Michelangelo spend almost his entire career?

• Spain
• France
• Italy ✓ (Correct answer)
• Greece

Source: He worked between Florence and Rome his whole life, never leaving the Italian peninsula.

On which famous chapel's ceiling did Michelangelo paint his frescoes?

• Sistine Chapel ✓ (Correct answer)
• Pazzi Chapel
• Medici Chapel
• Scrovegni Chapel

Source: He spent four years on his back-bent scaffold; the ceiling holds over 300 figures.

Which colossal marble statue of a biblical hero did Michelangelo carve?

• The Thinker
• David ✓ (Correct answer)
• Apollo Belvedere
• Discobolus

Source: His 17-foot David was carved from a flawed block other sculptors had abandoned.

What stone did Michelangelo prefer to carve his sculptures from?

• Granite
• Marble ✓ (Correct answer)
• Limestone
• Bronze

Source: He traveled to Carrara quarries himself to pick the purest white blocks.

Which contemporary genius was Michelangelo's great rival in Florence?

• Leonardo da Vinci ✓ (Correct answer)
• Donatello
• Caravaggio
• Botticelli

Source: The two were once asked to paint battle scenes on facing walls of the same hall.

Which fresco on the chapel ceiling shows two hands nearly touching?

• The Last Judgment
• The Creation of Adam ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Deluge
• The Fall of Man

Source: The tiny gap between God's and Adam's fingers became one of art's most copied images.

Which sorrowful sculpture shows Mary cradling the dead Christ?

• The Pietà ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Bruges Madonna
• Bacchus
• Moses

Source: It's the only work he ever signed, after overhearing visitors credit a rival.

What art form did Michelangelo consider his true calling?

• Painting
• Sculpture ✓ (Correct answer)
• Mosaic
• Printmaking

Source: He signed letters 'Michelangelo, sculptor' and saw painting as a lesser craft.

Besides art, what major field did Michelangelo also practice?

• Astronomy
• Architecture ✓ (Correct answer)
• Surgery
• Cartography

Source: He designed St. Peter's dome, still one of the largest in the world.

Which powerful pope commissioned the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

• Pope Leo X
• Pope Clement VII
• Pope Julius II ✓ (Correct answer)
• Pope Paul III

Source: The 'Warrior Pope' bullied a reluctant Michelangelo into taking the painting job.

Which dramatic fresco did Michelangelo later paint on the chapel's altar wall?

• The Conversion of Saul
• The Last Supper
• The Last Judgment ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Transfiguration

Source: Painted decades after the ceiling, its nudity scandalized the Church into adding cover-ups.

Which Florentine family were Michelangelo's most important early patrons?

• The Borgia
• The Sforza
• The Medici ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Este

Source: As a teen he lived in Lorenzo the Magnificent's household, dining with the family.

Whose horns appear on Michelangelo's famous seated statue of a prophet?

• Abraham
• Moses ✓ (Correct answer)
• Elijah
• David

Source: The horns came from a mistranslation of a Hebrew word meaning 'radiant'.

What did Michelangelo write hundreds of, revealing his private inner life?

• Sonnets ✓ (Correct answer)
• Plays
• Symphonies
• Novels

Source: His passionate verses, many to a young nobleman and a widow, were published after his death.

What Italian term describes Michelangelo's deliberately rough, unfinished sculptural style?

• Non-finito ✓ (Correct answer)
• Sfumato
• Chiaroscuro
• Contrapposto

Source: 'Non-finito' (unfinished) describes works he left rough in the block; he felt the figure was already trapped inside, waiting to be freed.

As a young man, what fake antique did Michelangelo reportedly sell to fool buyers?

• A Roman coin
• A sleeping Cupid ✓ (Correct answer)
• A bronze helmet
• A marble urn

Source: He aged the marble to pass it off as ancient, an early proof of his classical skill.

Which architectural staircase did Michelangelo design with unusual flowing curves?

• Spanish Steps
• Laurentian Library ✓ (Correct answer)
• Scala Regia
• Bramante Staircase

Source: Its lava-like steps spill outward, breaking every rule of classical design.

Whom did Michelangelo paint into the Last Judgment as a donkey-eared judge of hell?

• A papal cook
• A papal master of ceremonies ✓ (Correct answer)
• A rival painter
• A Florentine banker

Source: He took revenge on a critic by giving the demon Minos the man's face.

Which rival artist's design did Michelangelo replace when finishing St. Peter's Basilica?

• Bramante
• Raphael
• Sangallo ✓ (Correct answer)
• Bernini

Source: He scrapped his predecessor's costly model and returned to Bramante's simpler plan.

Which late Pietà did Michelangelo work on almost until his death, even attacking and partly reshaping it?

• The Rondanini Pietà ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Bandini Pietà
• The Palestrina Pietà
• The Doni Pietà

Source: He chiseled at the Rondanini Pietà in his final days, leaving it hauntingly unfinished; it now stands in Milan's Castello Sforzesco.