Going For Baroque Trivia Quiz

Seen here, Luxembourg Palace, or Le Palais du Luxembourg, is definitively Baroque, having been redesigned in the seventeenth century to better reflect buildings from Florence, Italy. The building exhibits traits of both the French and Italian Baroque styles as a result, with a striking and detailed outer facade of bold light and dark contrasts and sprawling surrounding gardens, all deep in the heart of Paris.

The Duomo di Milano, or the Milan Duomo, is found in the heart of Italy's cosmopolitan northern city and it is not a Baroque structure, instead being a key example of Gothic/Italian Renaissance architecture. The largest church in Italy, it started construction in the fourteenth century, only being formally finished in 1965. Because of how long the church took to be constructed, it exhibits several types of architecture blended together.

There are other churches in Milan that show off Italian Baroque, but this isn't one of them.

Another religious building with a long history of not being completed in good time, Sagrada Familia sits in the middle of Barcelona and is quite distinct in a city of distinctive architecture. Originally started in 1882, it has since been built by numerous people and has shifted its styles repeatedly, becoming a blend of Gothic Revival architecture (as per the original plans), Art Nouveau (per its complex outer design) and Modernista or Catalan Modernism, drawing on Arab and Medieval stylings.

Santa Maria della Salute is found at the end of Punta della Dogana in Venice, Italy and it is, in fact, Italian Baroque. Marking the entrance of the Grand Canal from its angle in the lagoon, it was built in the seventeenth century as one of the floating city's many resplendent religious structures.

Inside, the high altar is constructed in an octagonal shape, a particular style choice of Baroque architects. Because of the plague that hit Venice during its construction, many of its internal designs and art pieces are themed around the Black Death.

Constructed in the 1860s, Le Casino de Monte-Carlo is a grandiose structure in the city of Monaco and while it's a lavish, high-class destination, it's not Baroque. Instead, visiting this gaming and gambling locale will give you a close look at Beaux-Arts architecture, a particularly resplendent approach that used glass and metal in addition to French Renaissance techniques.

The building is also indicative of Second Empire style, characterized by highly decorative ornamentation (especially on the facade) and significant use of colour.

Place Vendôme is, indeed, a key example of French Baroque architecture, also known as French Classicism. An architectural style seen in plazas and squares in Paris in the 17th-century, the approach was instituted during the time of Louis XIV and continued into the eighteenth century before being surpassed by Neoclassic styles.

The architect responsible, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, was one of the key figures who established what many consider, today, to be a signature look and feel of the French capital city.

This image here depicts none other than the Hall of Mirrors, in the Palace of Versailles, and while it is a clear example of Baroque architecture, it's not alone on the grounds-- much of the complex is in this style. The Grand Trianon, for instance, is a massive château created as part of the palace's seventeenth century expansion by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who also created Place Vendôme.

The Hall of Mirrors remains one of the most highly-decorated rooms of the palace and a site of great historical significance.

Found in Oxfordshire, Blenheim Palace is a key example of the less-encountered English Baroque style. The birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, it's the only non-royal palace in all of England and it sits on a massive seven-acre piece of land. Built from massive amounts of carved stone, the facade of the building is particularly striking, creating dynamic shadows with its form as it sits, solitary, in the middle of the grounds.

Off to Latin America, this site here is Havana Cathedral, found in Old Havana in the nation of Cuba. Built in the mid-eighteenth century, it was built as an intentional outlier in this part of the world; designed by Italian architect Francesco Borromini, it was created specifically to evoke the look and feel of great Tuscan cathedrals.

Originally, the interior of the cathedral contained baroque fixtures, but these were updated over time. As with many of the buildings in Havana, weather has worn away the exterior; there's a continual effort to restore the facade.

Definitively not Baroque, it's hard to really call out what architectural style Moscow's St Basil's Cathedral really is. Truly an outlier in the way of landmarks, it has key hallmarks of existing aesthetics (Byzantine, German, and Italian styles are all present) but these are interspersed amongst original and ornate design choices that obscure any one approach.

It's in a class all its own, and that class is not Baroque.