Uffizi Madonnas Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sandro Botticelli

Painted in 1481 in tondo or circular form, "Madonna of the Magnificat" by Sandro Botticelli is also known as "Virgin and Child with Five Angels". The Magnificat is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary or Canticle of Mary, and can be found in the New Testament's Gospel of Luke. The Uffizi acquired the painting in 1784. There are another three of his Madonna paintings at the Uffizi.

Answer: Filippo Lippi

A tempera on panel painting, the model for the Madonna in this painting is reputed to be the Italian nun Lucrezia Buti who, scandalous at the time, was Fra Filippo Lippi's lover and mother of his two children. Lippo was also a teacher of such painters as Sandro Botticelli and Pesellino as well as his son Filippino.

Answer: Parmigianino

Also called "Madonna and Long Child with Angels and St Jerome", the commissioner of this oil and wood painting required St Jerome to be included (the knee-high figure on the right). Characteristics of Mannerism include elongation of figures, distortion of perspective, and composition and space in what was a reaction to the aesthetics of the Renaissance Movement.

The work of Parmigianino. also known as Francesco Mazzola, was known for its refined sensuality. As well as being an early Mannerist, he was a printmaker.

Answer: Raphael

Also known as "Madonna of the Goldfinch", the painting was a wedding gift to Raphael's friend Lorenzo Nasi. It was broken into 17 pieces when Nasi's house was destroyed by a landslide in 1548. Painted on wood, it was immediately put back together although with obvious seams. In 2002 a more high-tech repair was started involving X-rays, CAT scans, lasers and IR photography, stripping off the quick-fix layers to restore it to its original Raphael. The repair was completed in 2008.

Answer: Andrea del Sarto

The poem, a dramatic monologue contained in Browning's 1855 Poetry Collection "Men and Women", is also called "The Faultless Painter" and was based on biographic material from Giorgio Vasari, a contemporary Mannerist painter, perhaps the first art historian and responsible for the term 'Rinascita' (which is more familiar in English as 'Renaissance', the French equivalent).

The 1517 work was commissioned for the church of the convent and hospital of San Francesco dei Macci in Florence. His wife Lucrezia appeared in many of Andrea's paintings, often as Madonna. She gets short shrift from Vasari who described her as "faithless, jealous and vixenish with the apprentices". Vasari was himself a pupil of Andrea. Lucrezia survived her husband by forty years after he succumbed to an outbreak of bubonic plague at age 44.

Answer: Giotto

The prevailing style around the time of late Mediaeval artist Giotto di Bondone was Italo-Byzantine. The gold colouring and the flat gold ground is typical Byzantine; however, Giotto's figures depart from the Byzantine style with fuller three-dimensional portrayals.

Instead of gold tracing lines, he uses light, shadow and colour for a more realistic fabric with body contours showing. The throne is Italian Gothic in style.

Answer: Masaccio

Born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone (1401-1428), Masaccio worked with Masolino de Panicale (born Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini, c.1383-c.1447). The nickname Masaccio means 'clumsy/messy Tom', with Maso being short for Tommaso. It might have been used to distinguish him from his collaborator Masolino ('little/delicate Tom') whose name also derives from Tommaso.

In the painting itself, it is believed the Gothic style of Masolino is responsible for three of the angels, with the upper right one credited to Masaccio. Masaccio gets credit for the others, with a question mark over St Anne. The painting was commissioned for the church of Sant'Ambrogio in Florence.

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Commissioned by the San Donato Augustine monks in 1481, he left for Milan the following year with the painting unfinished. It has been with the Uffizi for over 350 years. Being unfinished, the commission was handed over to Filippino Lippo, son of Fra Filippo Lippi , who did his own version (finished in 1496) now at the Uffizi. Lippo's version appears to have been inspired by Sandro Botticelli's 1475 version, also in the Uffizi.

The father Fra Filippo Lippo is thought to have painted one as well, although it was credited to Fra Angelico some years after its creation and appears to have been added to over the years.

This version is the Washington Tondo or Cook Tondo and is in the US.

Answer: Rose

Various plants are associated with the Virgin Mary such as the white lily, the fleur-de-lis, the violet and the rose. In this case it is the rose which symbolises Mary's purity and love. Titian was not the only one to paint this symbol in Madonna paintings.

This version was painted around 1530 and includes Anthony the Great as well as a young John the Baptist. Tiziano Vecellio (or Titian) was born in the late 15th century and, along with Giorgione, was the founder of the Venetian school of Italian Renaissance painting.

Answer: Michelangelo

Commissioned to commemorate a marriage, it appears to have been all Michelangelo's own work rather than involving assistants. It was likely completed between 1503 after Agnolo Doni's marriage to Maddalena Strozzi and 1508 when Michelangelo started on the Sistine Chapel frescoes.

In its original frame, there has been much conflicting speculation about the meaning of different parts of the composition, both of the painting and the frame, such as the five heads protruding from the frame. Similarities have been noted to elements of Luca Signorelli's Medici "Madonna" (also at the Uffizi), the ancient statue of "Laocoön and His Sons" excavated in Rome in 1506 (and therefore suggesting a date for the painting after this), and so on.