A Red-Letter Quiz

Answer: bear

While there are black (Ursus americanus) and brown (Ursus arctos) bears, there is no bear species that bears the name "red". The red panda (Ailurus fulgens), which is sometimes called red cat-bear or red bear-cat, is neither a bear nor a cat, but is closely related to the weasel family.

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the largest and most widely distributed of the true foxes; the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) is an Eurasian species, as the American red squirrel belongs to a different genus; the red deer (Cervus elaphus) also comes from Eurasia, and is and one of the largest deer species. All these animals have coats of a beautiful reddish-brown colour, while many bird species have bright red plumage.

Answer: Easter

In Catholic liturgy, red represents the blood of Christ and the sacrifice of martyrs: for this reason, priests wear red vestments on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, as well as on the days celebrating martyrs, apostles and evangelists. The colour also symbolizes the fire of the Holy Spirit: accordingly, it is worn on the feast of Pentecost (commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples), and when celebrating the Sacrament of Confirmation, which is also associated with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Red is also occasionally worn by clergy during funeral rites for bishops, cardinals and popes, who are the successors of the Apostles.

The liturgical colour for Easter (and Christmas) is white.

Answer: hematite

Hematite (also spelled haematite) is an iron oxide (Fe2O3) commonly found in rocks and soils; its name is derived from "haima", the Greek word for "blood". Ochre, a clay that contains variable amounts of hematite, is often used as a pigment in artists' materials, such as red chalk (also known as sanguine), widely used for drawing and sketching. Cave paintings such as those in the Caves of Altamira (around 16,000 BC) were made with red ochre. Hematite is also used for jewellery and small carvings, though it tends to be heavier than other stones; it also becomes magnetic after heating.

The wrong answers are all ore minerals: bauxite is aluminium ore, apatite is phosphate that often contains uranium and rare-earth elements, and malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide. Both apatite and malachite are also used as gemstones, though neither is red.

Answer: lips

"Rossetto" - literally "little red" - is the Italian word for "lipstick"; the French word, "rouge à levres", also emphasized the red coloration of this very popular cosmetic, used to embellish and protect the lips. Though modern lipstick comes in many different shades (including black, blue and green), it originally came only in shades of red. In ancient times, women coloured their lips with dyes such as ochre (see Question 3), crushed mulberries, or crushed insects (cochineal). About 1,000 years ago, the Chinese started using beeswax, which has moisturizing and protective properties, as a base for lipstick, while in Europe the first beeswax-based lip colourings were introduced later, during the Renaissance. Until the turn of the 20th century, lipstick was mostly used by actors or prostitutes, and its use by "respectable" women was frowned upon.

Unfortunately, in the past cosmetics often contained poisonous substances - such as vermilion, derived from mercury sulfide - and even in recent times traces of lead have been found in various lipstick brands.

Answer: China

Also known as "The Story of the Stone" or "Hongloumeng", "Dream of the Red Chamber" was written in the mid-18th century, during the Qing dynasty, by Cao Xueqin, a talented writer and artist from Nanjing. The novel's 120-chapter version was first published in print in 1791, almost 30 years after its author's untimely death. Its textual history is very complex, and a whole field of academic study - named "Redology" - is dedicated to this work, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, together with "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Journey to the West" and "Water Margin".

"Dream of the Red Chamber" is a semi-autobiographical work, in which the story of the protagonist - a young man, Jia Baoyiu ("Precious Jade") - mirrors the story of Cao's own family and their fall from grace. Written in vernacular (rather than Classical) Chinese, the novel boasts a very large cast of characters, portrayed in groundbreakingly realistic fashion; special attention is given to the portrayal of the many female characters. The "red chamber" in the title is an idiom with several definitions: the one that best fits the content of the novel refers to the sheltered quarters inhabited by the daughters of noble families. The novel - whose standard English translation (published by Penguin) runs to 2,500 pages - has been adapted many times for the stage and the screen.

Answer: Rush

"Grace Under Pressure" is Rush's tenth studio album. Like its predecessor, "Signals" (1983), it is heavily synthesizer-based, and influenced by new wave and reggae, which were very popular at the time. The album's title was inspired by a quote from Ernest Hemingway, "courage is grace under pressure"; the lyrics to "Red Lenses" describe a person's reaction to reading news stories. "Red Sector A", on the other hand, was partly inspired by bassist Geddy Lee's mother's recollections of prison camps during the Holocaust; the song's title comes from a NASA launch area at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Neil Peart, one of rock's most celebrated drummers, and the band's lyricist from 1975 to the end of their career, sadly passed away from brain cancer in January 2020. He was also the author of seven non-fiction books.

Answer: Titian

Tiziano Vecellio (1488-1576), known in English as Titian, was one of the Venetian Renaissance's most influential painters, renowned for his masterful portraits of popes, monarchs and aristocrats. However, a large part of his fame also rests on his stunning use of colour, in particular his brilliant reds. In order to achieve a more luminous shade of red, Titian mixed his layers of pigment with a semi-transparent glaze; an outstanding example of his technique can be seen in the magnificent "Assumption of the Virgin", a large altarpiece painted for the Venetian church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, where it stands to this day. Titian's red pigment of choice was vermilion, a vivid scarlet pigment made from powdered cinnabar (mercury sulfide - see Q. 4), which was also highly toxic; because of that, in more recent times vermilion has been replaced with cadmium red. The sought-after shade of hair known as Titian red, often seen in the artist's beautiful female figures, is a warm, brownish-orange colour with golden highlights.

Bronzino is considered a Mannerist rather than a High Renaissance painter, unlike the other three.

Answer: Eritrea

The Greek adjective "erythros" means "red", and the marginal sea of the Indian Ocean known as the Red Sea was called "Erythra Thalassa", or Erythraean Sea, in ancient times; this designation also included other bodies of water, such as the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf. Eritrea, which became independent from Ethiopia (depriving the latter of its coastline on the Red Sea), formally adopted the name in 1890, when it became a colony of the Kingdom of Italy. Though poor and often plagued by political unrest, Eritrea has a very long history, and is one of the cradles of humankind; along with the neighbouring countries of Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia, it has often been identified with the wealthy land known to the Ancient Egyptians as Punt.

In modern English, the prefix "erythro-" is used to form scientific terms that mean "red", such as "erythrocyte" - the scientific name of a red blood cell. The reason why the Red Sea is called "red" is still debated: according to one theory, "red" may refer to the direction south, as "black" in "Black Sea" may refer to the north.

Answer: Henry VII

Though Margaret Beaufort (1441-1509) never became queen, she was one of England's most powerful women, and the force behind the rise of the Tudor dynasty. Her son, Henry Tudor, became King of England with the name of Henry VII after defeating Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), which put an end to the War of the Roses. After Henry's crowning, she was addressed as "My Lady the King's Mother", and granted a degree of independence that was almost unheard of at that time.

A descendant of Edward III, and her father's only legitimate heir, Margaret was married to the son of the Duke of Suffolk at one or two years of age; the marriage was dissolved, and she married Edmund Tudor, Henry's father, in 1455. He died a year later, and in 1458 Margaret married Sir Henry Stafford. She outlived not only her husbands, but also her son, her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth of York, and her eldest grandson, Prince Arthur. A lifelong patron of culture and the arts, Margaret founded two of the colleges of the University of Cambridge, Christ's College and St. John's College.

"The Red Queen" is the second volume of English historical fiction author Philippa Gregory's "The Cousins' War" series; it follows "The White Queen", dedicated to Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV's queen consort.

Answer: vichyssoise

Probably derived from the classic French potato-and-leek soup known as "potage Parmentier", vichyssoise soup - made with pureed leeks, potatoes, and cream or milk, and generally served cold - is white, or a very pale shade of yellow or green. In spite of its French name, it is believed by some (including famed cookbook author Julia Child) to be an American creation.

The other three soups are all quite red in colour, though for different reasons. Borscht, from Ukraine and Russia, contains beets; gazpacho, from Spain, is another cold soup traditionally made with tomatoes and other raw vegetables; goulash, from Hungary and other parts of Central Europe, is seasoned with bright red paprika.