Deck 13: Siena and Florence in the Fourteenth Century: Toward a New Humanism

Question 1

By the end of the fourteenth century,why had Florence become an important banking city?

A)The Medici family began lending money to northern European countries.
B)Florence's hilltop location provided natural defense against thieves.
C)The pope conferred Siena's papal banking privileges on Florence.
D)Florence's metalworking guild controlled Europe's largest gold reserves.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

In the Arena Chapel frescoes,Giotto deliberately abandons Byzantine balance and symmetry to

A)conform the paintings to the shape of the chapel.
B)make the scenes look more realistic.
C)fit more figures into each scene.
D)impart a greater sense of spirituality to the paintings.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

In Dante's Inferno,sinners are punished for their sins

A)by crucifixion.
B)by avenging angels.
C)according to their status in life.
D)according to how they sinned.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Buon fresco has the advantage of

A)creating a completely non-porous surface,allowing total impermeability to water.
B)drying relatively slowly,allowing artists to work methodically.
C)being less likely to flake than fresco secco.
D)being able to accept oil paint as an additive.

Question 5

Before 1355,the most powerful guild in Siena was that of the

A)masons.
B)notaries.
C)merchants.
D)carpenters.

Question 6

Why did Siena experience population growth after 1125?

A)Its free commune status offered release from feudalism.
B)While other city-states warred,it remained peaceful.
C)It lay on a critical trade route between Florence and Venice.
D)Massive building projects provided jobs and housing.

Question 7

In the Inferno,Dante places Judas,Brutus,and Cassius in the lowest level of his hell,because they

A)were hypocrites.
B)were traitors.
C)died by suicide.
D)were wrathful.

Question 8

Who in Florence was eligible to serve in the government?

A)only guild members
B)members of the Guelph party
C)any free man
D)members of the nobility

Question 9

In the Divine Comedy,Dante uses

A)heroic couplets.
B)an octave followed by sestets.
C)terza rima.
D)sestets followed by an octave.

Question 10

Both Siena and Florence are located

A)in the Alps near France.
B)in the Arno River valley.
C)on the Tyrrhenian seacoast.
D)in the region of Tuscany.

Question 11

Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes include the first instance since antiquity of the depiction of

A)people from behind.
B)a nude female.
C)a figure posed with contrapposto.
D)flying angels.

Question 12

Florentine bankers' most important invention was

A)insured deposits.
B)interest on deposits.
C)Europe's first single currency.
D)investment in local industries.

Question 13

Why were Siena's guilds able to rise to such levels of power?

A)Siena was an important manufacturing city.
B)Siena's guilds led a successful revolt against their feudal lord.
C)Siena's guilds supported the pope,who awarded them privileges.
D)Siena supplied all of Italy with stained-glass windows.

Question 14

How does Duccio di Buoninsegna's Maestá break from Byzantine portrayals of Mary and the Christ Child?

A)Mary and the Christ Child are larger than the surrounding figures.
B)Mary's body has substance,and the Christ Child resembles an actual baby.
C)Mary and the Christ Child are depicted in reverse perspective.
D)Mary and the Christ Child look straight out,engaging the viewer.

Question 15

Giotto's Madonna Enthroned with Saints and Angels is more naturalistic than earlier paintings,owing to the

A)large size of Mary relative to the other figures in the painting.
B)vibrant colors used throughout the composition.
C)inclusion of the painting's patrons among the figures.
D)use of light to create contours and substantial figures.

Question 16

Florence's wealth based largely on

A)textile production.
B)trade in gold.
C)fishing and grain agriculture.
D)olive oil production.

Question 17

The Virgin Mary's crown in Simone Martini's Maestá is significant,because it

A)establishes her as both a sacred and a secular queen.
B)separates her from the halo-clad angels and saints.
C)defines her position as queen of all the angels.
D)emphasizes her role as the bride of the Church.

Question 18

Florence's patron saint was

A)the Virgin Mary.
B)Peter.
C)Thomas Aquinas.
D)John the Baptist.

Question 19

Why do pictures of the Virgin Mary abound in Siena?

A)Mary allegedly appeared in Siena in 1317.
B)Siena was home to Italy's largest guild of painters.
C)The city's cathedral claimed to have her bones.
D)Siena called itself "ancient city of the virgin."

Question 20

Dante Alighieri composed his Divine Comedy in the vernacular to

A)appeal to a wider lay audience.
B)protest the formal language of the Church.
C)avoid heresy charges from the Church.
D)emphasize his alliance with the Guelphs.

Question 21

Why were England and France fighting in the Hundred Years' War?

A)France wanted to claim Normandy from the English.
B)Joan of Arc claimed that God told her to attack the English.
C)England wanted to claim Normandy from the French.
D)The French king claimed himself rightful heir to the English throne.

Question 22

In her Book of the City of Ladies,Christine de Pizan makes the Virgin Mary queen to

A)confirm women's centrality to Christianity.
B)appease potential critics from the Church.
C)show that women were more devout than men.
D)emphasize the relationship between reason and religion.

Question 23

Petrarch perfected the literary form of

A)terza rima.
B)satire.
C)the Italian sonnet.
D)the heroic couplet.

Question 24

Examine Giotto's portrayals of the Virgin Mary in the Arena Chapel frescoes,comparing his with the work of at least one of the following: Duccio,Martini,Cimabue.

Question 25

Why did Christine de Pizan become the first female professional writer in European history?

A)As a widow,she needed to support her family.
B)Her prominent physician father advised her to write.
C)She believed that God,in a vision,told her to write Joan of Arc's story.
D)Her husband arranged her first commission,a biography.

Question 26

Explain Dante's use of numbers in the Divine Comedy,focusing on their symbolism.

Question 27

Explain how Europe's devastating fourteenth-century plague outbreaks influenced the literature of Boccaccio and perhaps Chaucer.

Question 28

Only 22 of Chaucer's planned 120 Canterbury Tales exist because he

A)burned the remaining tales for fear of political persecution.
B)died before the completing the remaining tales.
C)accepted a diplomatic post in France,where the remaining tales were seized and destroyed.
D)buried the remaining tales,and they have yet to be found.

Question 29

Some people refer to the Canterbury Tales as an "estates satire" because it

A)is set in a secluded estate outside London.
B)provides a critique of social relations of the day.
C)focuses on characters who lived on the knight's estate.
D)includes stories that mock the upper classes.

Question 30

Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales in

A)Italian.
B)Latin.
C)French.
D)Middle English.

Question 31

In the Decameron,Boccaccio introduces into Western literature the literary convention of

A)the framing tale.
B)the epic poem.
C)satire.
D)social realism.

Question 32

Dante designed his Inferno so that sinners were assigned progressively worse levels based upon their sins and punishment not for but by their sins.Explain his rationale for this design,citing specific examples of his sinners,their placements,and their punishments.

Question 33

The main charge for which Joan of Arc was tried and executed was

A)witchcraft.
B)insanity.
C)conspiracy.
D)cross-dressing.

Question 34

According to the chapter text,a positive effect of the bubonic plague was that

A)European cities became cleaner.
B)per capita wealth increased.
C)port regulations became stricter.
D)university enrollment increased.

Question 35

Compare the governments of late-medieval Siena and Florence.

Question 36

Trace the origins of the Siena-Florence competition,focusing on the ways it manifested itself in the art and architecture of the two cities.

Question 37

List and explain the importance and innovations of the Florentine bankers.

Question 38

The Scrovegni family built and commissioned Giotto to decorate Arena Chapel in penance for their usurious practices,which gained one of their members (Reginaldo)placement in Dante's seventh level of his Inferno.Discuss the irony reflected in the chapel's existence and lavishness.

Question 39

The ten storytellers in Boccaccio's Decameron leave Florence for a country estate to

A)escape the Black Death.
B)avoid a potential scandal.
C)enjoy the pastoral life.
D)establish a new society.

Question 40

Explain the structure of a Petrarchan sonnet-both the construction and the meaning.

Question 41

Discuss the social realism of Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Question 42

Discuss the late medieval views of women as presented in Boccaccio's Decameron,Petrarch's Canzione,and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.