Renaissance Men: Pick the Artists! Quiz

Answer:

You may have noticed that this list of Italian Renaissance greats does not include the "usual suspects" - that is, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo, who are so well known that their names would have been a bit of a giveaway. However, the gentlemen featured in this quiz were no less representative of the ideal of a "Renaissance man" than those three iconic personages. Indeed, along with their "main gig" as painters, architects or sculptors, many of these talented individuals also engaged in science, literature or other cultivated pursuits.

Three of these men are known principally as architects. Florentine Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) revolutionized architecture by drawing on classical sources and creating the marvel of engineering that is the dome of Florence Cathedral; he was, however, also an accomplished sculptor and goldsmith. Born, like Raphael, in the Marche region of eastern-central Italy, Donato Bramante (1444-1514) is known for having designed the plan for St Peter's Basilica that was later developed by Michelangelo and Carlo Maderno; he also worked as a painter, and wrote poetry (sonnets) and architectural treatises. Renowned for his classically-influenced country houses and villas, Venetian Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) had a huge impact on the architecture of 17th- and 18th-century England, as well as that of the US; he also published a four-volume treatise titled "The Four Books of Architecture".

A contemporary of Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) is the only person on the list who worked primarily as a sculptor: his best-known work is the stunning bronze doors (the "Gates of Paradise") of Florence Baptistery; he also wrote a book about art, the "Commentarii", which contains one of the earliest examples of an artist's autobiography. Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), painter of ethereally beautiful women, was one of the most iconic of Renaissance artists, a protégé of the powerful Florentine Medici family; he was also an illustrator of manuscripts and printed books, and is believed to have written a commentary on Dante's "Divine Comedy".

Fellow Florentine Paolo Uccello (Paolo di Dono, 1397-1475) is known for his unique approach to painting and its extremely detailed focus on perspective - which he approached from a mathematician's point of view; his nickname ("bird" in Italian) stems from his love of animals, birds in particular. Born near Arezzo, in eastern Tuscany, Piero della Francesca (1415-1492) was also a practitioner of mathematics and geometry as well as an outstanding painter with a keen interest in perspective, known for the almost three-dimensional feel of his figures; he also wrote a number of scientific treatises on these topics, three of which have survived.

Both hailing from the Republic of Venice, Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) and Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516) were also brothers-in-law, as Mantegna had married Bellini's sister. Though very different in style - Mantegna being inspired by classical art, in particular sculpture, and Bellini more focused on atmosphere and colour - both these artists were extremely influential on the development of painting in Venice and Northern Italy in general; Mantegna also led a workshop known for the quality of its prints. In spite of his Sicilian birth, Antonello da Messina (1430-1479) had a distinctive style that was strongly inspired by Flemish and Netherlandish painting, which turn influenced Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio and other Venetian painters. He did not, however, introduce oil painting in Italy from the Low Countries as he was long believed to have done.

All the Renaissance men that appear as incorrect choices earned fame in pursuits not related to the visual arts. Amerigo Vespucci and Giovanni da Verrazzano were explorers, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was a composer. Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini were writers, historians and statesmen, while Ludovico Ariosto was a poet, the author of the romance epic "Orlando Furioso".