Q 01/05

What is regarded as the defining design element of Gothic architecture?

A) The pointed arch

B) The Doric column

C) The dome

D) The round arch

Answer · why

A) The pointed arch

The pointed arch pushes less weight sideways than a round arch, and its height need not match its width, so vaults could climb higher.

Q 02/05

Gothic architecture was supplanted from the mid-15th century by which style, born in Italy?

A) Baroque

B) Byzantine

C) Renaissance

D) Neoclassical

Answer · why

C) Renaissance

Renaissance forms spread slowly north, and in England and Belgium Gothic kept flourishing well into the 16th century.

Q 03/05

Which architect led the 19th-century restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, crowning it with a new spire?

A) Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

B) Baron Haussmann

C) Gustave Eiffel

D) Charles Garnier

Answer · why

A) Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's workshop also carved new gargoyles and chimeras, and his spire was the one that collapsed in the 2019 fire.

Q 04/05

What was the Gothic style called in medieval Latin?

A) Opus Gothicum

B) Opus Barbarum

C) Opus Francigenum

D) Opus Romanum

Answer · why

C) Opus Francigenum

Opus Francigenum meant 'French work', yet Italian writers later called the very same style maniera tedesca, the 'German manner'.

Q 05/05

Which Italian writer blamed the Goths for medieval architecture in 1550, popularising 'Gothic' as a sneer?

A) Filippo Brunelleschi

B) Andrea Palladio

C) Leon Battista Alberti

D) Giorgio Vasari

Answer · why

D) Giorgio Vasari

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists held the Goths, who had sacked Rome, responsible for wrecking ancient buildings and raising new ones in this sty...