Q 01/05

Michelangelo was born in 1475 in Caprese, a small town in which Italian region?

A) Tuscany

B) Umbria

C) Lazio

D) Emilia-Romagna

Answer · why

A) Tuscany

His father was the town's judicial administrator; the family returned to Florence months later.

Q 02/05

As a boy in Settignano, Michelangelo lived with a nanny whose husband did what job?

A) Blacksmith

B) Wool dyer

C) Stonecutter

D) Vineyard keeper

Answer · why

C) Stonecutter

His father owned a marble quarry there; he later said he took in the knack of chisel and hammer 'along with the milk of my nurse'.

Q 03/05

At 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to which Florentine fresco master?

A) Sandro Botticelli

B) Domenico Ghirlandaio

C) Andrea del Verrocchio

D) Filippino Lippi

Answer · why

B) Domenico Ghirlandaio

A year later his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay him as an artist, rare for someone so young.

Q 04/05

Michelangelo gave the nickname 'The Gates of Paradise' to bronze doors on which Florentine building?

A) The Duomo

B) Orsanmichele

C) The Palazzo Vecchio

D) The Baptistery

Answer · why

D) The Baptistery

Lorenzo Ghiberti laboured 50 years over the north and east doors.

Q 05/05

Which ruler asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils in 1489 and received Michelangelo?

A) Ludovico Sforza

B) Pope Sixtus IV

C) Piero Soderini

D) Lorenzo de' Medici

Answer · why

D) Lorenzo de' Medici

Francesco Granacci was the other; Michelangelo then attended the Medici's Platonic Academy alongside Ficino and Poliziano.