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50 free Botticelli trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Sandro Botticelli painted the most famous nude in Western art on two sewn-together pieces of cheap canvas, was nicknamed after his barrel-shaped brother, and ended his life unfashionable, unable to stand upright, forgotten for three centuries until the Pre-Raphaelites dug him out. These 50 questions cover the whole arc: the tanner's son from Borgo Ognissanti, the apprenticeship with Fra Filippo Lippi, the Medici circle and the Pazzi conspiracy, the summons to Rome to fresco the Sistine Chapel, and the mythologies of the 1480s. You will get The Birth of Venus in detail (the shell, Zephyrus, the Venus Pudica pose, Simonetta Vespucci), Primavera's cast from Mercury to Chloris, the wasps and satyrs of Venus and Mars, Pallas and the Centaur's Medici rings, and the apocalyptic Greek inscription on The Mystical Nativity. Easy questions cover Florence, the Uffizi and Spring; the hard tier asks about Baccio Baldini, Nastagio degli Onesti, the Friedrichshain flak tower and what the Centaur's captor was first called. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Italian city was Botticelli born, and where did he live all his life?
Florence
His only long spells away were months in Pisa in 1474 and Rome in 1481–82.
Q 02Which Florentine gallery holds both The Birth of Venus and Primavera?
Uffizi
It holds many of his works; Venus and Mars is the only big mythology elsewhere.
Q 03What does the nickname Botticelli mean?
Little barrel
It was first applied to his round-figured brother Giovanni, called Botticello.
Q 04What was Botticelli's real surname?
Filipepi
He was born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, son of a tanner.
Q 05To which leading painter, a Medici favourite, was Botticelli apprenticed around 1461?
Fra Filippo Lippi
He later took on his master's son Filippino as his own first apprentice.
Q 06On what does Venus stand in The Birth of Venus?
A scallop shell
Its size is imaginary; Zephyrus blows her toward the shore while a Hora holds out a cloak.
Q 07Which wind god blows Venus ashore in The Birth of Venus?
Zephyrus
Lines radiate from his mouth; he carries a lighter breeze Vasari called Aura.
Q 08Unlike Primavera, The Birth of Venus was painted on which support?
Canvas
Two pieces of cheaper canvas were sewn together over a blue-tinted gesso ground.
Q 09Which 'modest' antique statue type gave Botticelli's newborn goddess her hand positions?
Venus Pudica
Kenneth Clark noted her body otherwise follows 'the curve of a Gothic ivory'.
Q 10Which famous Florentine beauty is traditionally said to be the model for Venus?
Simonetta Vespucci
She died at about 22 in 1476; Ruskin convinced himself she had posed nude, which scholars doubt.
Q 11Which Ligurian town, 'port of Venus', may be the birthplace of Botticelli's Venus model?
Portovenere
Poliziano wrote that, like Venus, she was born among the waves.
Q 12What does the title Primavera mean in English?
Spring
Vasari first used the name after seeing it at the Villa di Castello by 1550.
Q 13Roughly how many plant species have been identified in Primavera?
500
About 190 different flowers appear, at least 130 of them identifiable.
Q 14Which god raises his caduceus toward the clouds at the far left of Primavera?
Q 21What insignia decorates the dress of the female figure in Pallas and the Centaur?
Medici three-ring device
A 1499 inventory listed it with Primavera in Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's town palace.
Q 22What was the female figure in Pallas and the Centaur called in its earliest 1499 record?
Camilla
A 1516 inventory renamed her Minerva; Frothingham thought she personified Florence.
Q 23Which pope summoned Botticelli to Rome in 1481 to fresco the Sistine Chapel?
Sixtus IV
The Florentine team was part of a peace deal after the Pazzi conspiracy.
Mercury
He is clothed in red with a sword and helmet beside the dancing Three Graces.
Q 15In Primavera, which nymph is seized by the wind god and transformed into Flora?
Chloris
Flowers pour from her mouth to signal the change, following Ovid's Fasti.
Q 16What hovers over Venus in the centre of Primavera?
A blindfolded Cupid
He aims his bow to the left toward the Three Graces.
Q 17Which Medici house poet may have helped Botticelli devise Primavera?
Poliziano
The painting draws on Ovid and possibly Lucretius as well as his poem.
Q 18Which London institution has owned Venus and Mars since 1874?
National Gallery
It is the only one of his four big mythologies not in the Uffizi.
Q 19What insects buzz around the sleeping Mars in Venus and Mars?
Wasps
Gombrich suggested they stand for the Vespucci, whose name means 'little wasps'.
Q 20What creatures play with Mars's armour in Venus and Mars?
Infant satyrs
One blows a conch shell in his ear, trying and failing to wake him.
Q 24How many of the original fourteen large Sistine Chapel scenes did Botticelli paint?
Three
Temptations of Christ, Youth of Moses and Punishment of the Sons of Corah, plus papal portraits.
Q 25Which Roman monument is copied in Botticelli's Punishment of the Sons of Corah?
Arch of Constantine
He reused it around 1500 in The Story of Lucretia; he rarely copied antiquities so closely.
Q 26Which artist was the first hired for the Sistine walls and probably in overall charge?
Perugino
Vasari implied Botticelli led the project, but modern historians disagree.
Q 27The inscription on The Mystical Nativity places it at the end of which year?
1500
It is his only signed work; he wrote that he painted it 'in the troubles of Italy'.
Q 28In what language is the apocalyptic inscription at the top of The Mystical Nativity?
Greek
He wrote that he painted it 'in the half-time after the time', expecting the devil to be bound.
Q 29Which museum holds The Mystical Nativity?
National Gallery, London
Seven small devils pierce themselves and sink into the underworld at its foot.
Q 30Which Dominican preacher influenced Botticelli's late, austere style?
Savonarola
Vasari claimed he gave up painting as a 'piagnone'; modern scholars do not accept this.