Q 01/05

Botticelli was a leading painter of which period in Italian art?

A) Renaissance

B) Baroque

C) Mannerism

D) Romanticism

Answer · why

A) Renaissance

Renaissance: he worked in its early phase, and within his own lifetime his flat, linear style was overtaken by a younger generation. He was then all b...

Q 02/05

Which Florentine gallery holds both The Birth of Venus and Primavera?

A) Pitti Palace

B) Uffizi

C) Accademia

D) Bargello

Answer · why

B) Uffizi

Uffizi: the two were not painted as a pair. Primavera is first recorded in a Medici town house and only later joined The Birth of Venus at the family'...

Q 03/05

What does the nickname Botticelli mean?

A) Little wasp

B) Little barrel

C) Little brush

D) Little saint

Answer · why

B) Little barrel

Little barrel: the name was first given to his elder brother Giovanni, apparently for his round build, and passed on to Sandro. Vasari told it differe...

Q 04/05

What was Botticelli's real surname?

A) Lippi

B) Vespucci

C) Filipepi

D) Vannucci

Answer · why

C) Filipepi

Filipepi was the family name, but the nickname replaced it in his own lifetime. On the one painting he ever signed he used neither, calling himself si...

Q 05/05

To which leading painter, a Medici favourite, was Botticelli apprenticed around 1461?

A) Domenico Ghirlandaio

B) Andrea del Verrocchio

C) Fra Filippo Lippi

D) Piero della Francesca

Answer · why

C) Fra Filippo Lippi

Fra Filippo Lippi was a friar who ran off with a nun, Lucrezia Buti. Their son Filippino in turn became Botticelli's first apprentice.