Who's Who: Renaissance People Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Shakespeare

Probably best known as a playwright, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote comedies like " A Midsummer Night's Dream", tragedies, such as "Romeo and Juliet", and historical plays, such as "Richard III". At first his plays were performed at a theater called the "Theater", however, some of its materials were used to build a new theater called the "Globe Theater". Shakespeare also wrote poems called sonnets; he published a book with 154 of them in 1609.

Some people consider him to be the greatest writer of the English language in history.

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Considered to be a true "Renaissance man", someone who is talented in many areas of learning, Leonardo (1452-1519) had many abilities and created beautiful works of art. He was also a scientist, inventor, poet, anatomist, engineer, musician, and mathematician.

His paintings, "Mona Lisa" and the "Last Supper", are perhaps two of the best-known artworks in the world today. In addition, he left behind notebooks containing an estimated 28,000-20,000 pages; over 7,000 pages still exist today.

Answer: Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) invented moveable type and changed the world forever. Before that, all books were copied by hand, which was a very long and expensive process. Books were scarce, and most people were illiterate. With the invention of moveable type, which used metal letters to create pages, thousands of books could be created, and knowledge and learning spread faster. Gutenberg's printing press is considered by many to be the most important invention of the modern world.

Answer: Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) had a rather revolutionary idea - he wanted to reach the East by sailing West! At the beginning of the Age of Exploration there was only one sea route that went to China, and that was a very long, dangerous trip around Africa. Columbus wanted to sail across the Atlantic Ocean instead, thinking that China was about 2,400 miles away.

Instead, it was about 10,000 miles away! Overall, he had a great plan; one thing, however, that he did not take into account was that North and South America were right in the way!

Answer: Michelangelo

Another good example of a Renaissance man, Michelangelo (1475-1564) was an artist, sculptor, poet, and architect. He is well known for his statue of David, which, at the time, was the largest sculpture that had been made since the fall of Rome. His paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel covered an area of 141 feet by 43 feet.

It included the images of over three hundred people - and all of them are uniquely different! The first artist whose life was chronicled by a biographer, Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo was sometimes called "Il Divino", or "the divine one".

Answer: Galileo Galilei

In the early 1500s an astronomer named Copernicus studied the planets and came up with the notion that the sun was the center of the universe with all of the other planets revolving around it. This was a very dangerous idea because the Roman Catholic Church taught that the Earth was the center of the universe, and all the planets revolved around the Earth. Galileo (1564-1642) made a new telescope in 1609 that modified one that had already been invented; with his telescope he proved that Copernicus was right! Consequently, he was named a heretic by the Church and spent the last years of his life under house arrest.

Answer: Petrarch

Petrarch (1304-1374) is considered to be the father of humanism, which was a prevalent school of thought during the Renaissance. Believing in the worth of the individual person, humanists were the ones who revived the interest in the learning of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Also credited with the development of the sonnet, a 14-line poem that rhymes, Petrarch wrote poems to Laura, a woman with whom he apparently fell in love at first sight. Even though she was already married, he wrote a collection of poems about her that is called the "Canzoniere".

Answer: Prince Henry of Portugal

Prince Henry of Portugal (1394-1460), who is known in history as "the Navigator", really didn't go exploring himself. Instead, he sent others to chart the west coast of Africa in hopes of finding a sea route to China. He also established schools for navigators in hopes of training sailors who were not afraid of falling off the edge of the world or finding sea monsters.

Although Prince Henry died before Bartolomeu Dias made it to the Cape of Good Hope, he made Portugal a leader in navigation and trade during the early years of the Age of Exploration.

Answer: Niccolò Machiavelli

Although he is best known for writing "The Prince", an essay about the way a Prince should rule his people, Machiavelli (1469-1527) was also a diplomat and a politician. During his lifetime, there were many city-states in the area that is called Italy today, and Machiavelli's essay was intended to give advice regarding what he thought a ruler would have to do to unify the country.

As it turned out, Machiavelli was way ahead of his time: Italy was not unified until 1871!

Answer: Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a Roman Catholic priest, but he was concerned about some of the practices of the Church. One that especially bothered him was the selling of indulgences, or paying to have sins forgiven so that one's soul did not have to go to Purgatory after dying, but straight to heaven! When he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of his Church, he was hoping to bring about a reform.

Instead, he ultimately created a new church called the Lutheran Church, and a new group within Christianity - the Protestants.