Q 01/05

What is glass traditionally coloured with to make stained glass?

A) Plant dyes stirred into the melt

B) Mineral pigments brushed on cold

C) Metallic salts added during manufacture

D) Coloured resins sealed between panes

Answer · why

C) Metallic salts added during manufacture

Metallic salts added during manufacture colour the glass itself, so the picture is a jigsaw of cut pieces and the painter's dark paint adds the outlin...

Q 02/05

What are the metal strips that traditionally hold stained-glass pieces together called?

A) Ferramenta

B) Tracery

C) Cames

D) Mullions

Answer · why

C) Cames

Cames are H-shaped in section, so each strip grips the edges of two neighbouring pieces at once, and their dark lines end up as part of the drawing.

Q 03/05

Which metal is used to make the strips that join the glass in a traditional window?

A) Copper

B) Lead

C) Iron

D) Tin

Answer · why

B) Lead

Lead is soft enough to bend round every curve of the cut glass, and that softness has a price: a big panel sags unless it is tied to iron bars set acr...

Q 04/05

Which metallic oxide produces the deep blue of medieval glass, famous at one great French cathedral?

A) Copper

B) Cobalt

C) Manganese

D) Nickel

Answer · why

B) Cobalt

Cobalt is thought to be named after the kobold, a goblin German miners blamed for ore that looked promising but proved poisonous and gave them no silv...

Q 05/05

Which precious metal, in tiny concentrations, produces rich ruby-red glass?

A) Gold

B) Palladium

C) Platinum

D) Silver

Answer · why

A) Gold

Gold tints glass not as a dye but as a haze of metal particles far too small to see, so a mere trace is enough; a weaker dose gives the pink sold as c...